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Introduction

What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology attempts to replicate human intelligence and problem solving tasks (Investopedia, 2024). John McCarthy (2019) coined the term as "the science and engineering of making intelligent machines." AI is used in many settings and situations to help humans to solve problems and speed up routine activities.

This guide will focus on generative AI, although there are multiple categories of AI.

You may already be using AI in your studies, for example search tools or spell check tools. These are categorised as narrow AI tools - designed to carry out a particular task (Banafa, 2024).

Some examples of narrow AI include:

  • Navigation applications and search tools
  • Spell check
  • Face ID
  • Self-driving cars

Generative AI is a type of narrow AI which tends to be more complex and carries out tasks like problem solving. Generative AI tools use more complex machine learning to learn, think and perform actions similar to a human (Kaplan, 2024).

Some examples of generative AI include:

  • Chatbots and text generation tools
  • AI image generation tools
  • AI music or video generation tools

What is generative AI?

Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence. It uses predictive algorithms and large language models to rapidly produce content from a request or prompt it is given. Additionally, the content it produces does not have to be programmed (Kaplan, 2024). The results range from images, music and video to software code and text. There are many tools available, all which are trained on large datasets of various sizes. It’s important to understand how to critically evaluate the content produced by these tools as the information we can get from them is not always reliable.

Some generative AI tools can produce plausible sounding content that is factually incorrect, outdated and even nonsensical. Using any generative AI tool to generate content comes with some risk and it is important to evaluate what is produced carefully and use these tools ethically (Kaplan, 2024).

 

University of South Australia. (2023, July 26). Generative AI explained by UniSA Online [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/71-NOcQnF8w

How can I become more AI literate?

AI literacy means learning when and how to use AI tools appropriately. It also means having the skills to question AI tools and critically evaluate the results of generative AI tools (Long & Magerko, 2020). This includes understanding basic information about the technology involved and how the results you are given are affected by the prompts you use. There are appropriate and inappropriate ways to use generative AI technology at university.

Some of the skills you will need in your learning and study include:

  • Recognising the difference between technological tools that use and do not use AI
  • Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of using AI tools
  • Understanding that humans program large data sets to tune AI systems and what an AI tool produces may be factually incorrect or biased because of the data set
  • Being critical of the information AI tools produce and know how to critically evaluate information

The SIFT method is a useful evaluation strategy you can use to evaluate information produced by a generative AI tool. In your learning and study at university you need to learn to apply critical thinking which will also assist you in developing AI literacy.

When choosing to use a generative AI tool, it is important to understand who has created it, what their purpose might be and what data they have used to train it. If you are unable to find this information easily then you should be questioning if it is an appropriate tool to use – the ROBOT test is a tool which can help you evaluate the platform you use (e.g. ChatGPT or CoPilot).

Reliability

  • How reliable is the information available about the AI technology?
  • If it’s not produced by the party responsible for the AI, what are the author’s credentials?
  • If it is produced by the party responsible for the AI, how much information are they making available?
  • Is information only partially available due to trade secrets?
  • How biased is the information that the tool produces?

Objective

  • What is the goal or objective of the use of AI?
  • What is the goal of sharing information about it? To inform? To convince?

Bias

  • What could create bias in the AI technology?
  • Are there ethical issues associated with this?
  • Are bias or ethical issues acknowledged?

Owner

  • Who is the owner or developer of the AI technology?

Type

  • Which subtype of AI is it? 
  • What kind of information system does it rely on?
  • Does it rely on human intervention?

References

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