What are the rules with ChatGPT?

[Toocrazy!!]

I’ve never used ChatGPT so I don’t really understand its capabilities. Are students allowed to use it at all? Are they allowed to ask it questions to brainstorm for a personal essay? 
 

what about at a job? Are you allowed to use it to help problem solve your actual responsibilities like you would another source of info? Are you allowed to use it to write letters or email responses? 

[kirstenhill]

3 minutes ago, Toocrazy!! said:

what about at a job? Are you allowed to use it to help problem solve your actual responsibilities like you would another source of info? Are you allowed to use it to write letters or email responses? 

I'm sure it varies considerably, but my DH is not allowed to use any "public" versions of AI for anything work related, as they don't want any proprietary information accidentally being used to train the AI.  

[bookbard]

44 minutes ago, Toocrazy!! said:

I’ve never used ChatGPT so I don’t really understand its capabilities. Are students allowed to use it at all? Are they allowed to ask it questions to brainstorm for a personal essay? 

The reality is that there'll be different rules for every setting, and it's your job to find out. And those rules are changing all the time. Sometimes you can use it as long as you acknowledge it, sometimes you can't use it at all, and sometimes there's no rules about it at all.

Having said that, I'd encourage you to think about it for yourself, and think about making a decision based on your personal ethics. I won't use it for several reasons. Firstly, it was created in a very unethical way, using poorer people and paying them poorly, along with taking people's creative work without asking. Secondly, it has a massive environmental impact due to its energy use. Thirdly, it's a way for billionaires to get richer and therefore by using it, we're contributing to increasing inequality. I also think, on a personal level, that it could become a crutch. If you rely on outsourcing problem-solving and creativity, you won't practice it and therefore you won't get better at it.

 

[Heartstrings]

I know a lot of people use it, and other tools, to help with communication, like emails.  

[Katy]

The problem with it is that when it doesn’t know the answer, it won’t say that. Instead it makes stuff up. And if you’re not double checking it, you WILL sooner or later make a huge mistake with it. There was a lawyer, maybe a year ago, who got in pretty big trouble in court because he relied on it instead of paying for the law library subscription he should have. It made up fake cases. 
 

https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-chatgpt-fake-case-lawyers-d6ae9fa79d0542db9e1455397aef381c

[wintermom]

The references it makes up are wrong and it's annoying to double-check them. If the supporting data for what it wrote is made up, then how is there any confidence that the rest of it is of worth, either? For stuff people can write quickly on their own, it seems ok, but then why not just write it on your own? Use that brain to write and you'll keep getting better at writing.

For definitions it seems pretty crap, too, because again there is no source listed. I would much rather use google for a quick definition.

I've heard of people using it to do quick language translations, but these are people who are fluent in both langauges, because you need to varify that the AI version is correct. I don't see how this would make one's job quicker - you are still losing the capacity to write well if you don't create your own content.

And with the free version ofChatGPT whatever you input is now out there as "public" data for AI to use. 

Edited June 12 by wintermom

[Bootsie]

I had a case study that students had to do and then they had to answer "Would you vote for Smith or Jones? Why?"  I had graded about 100 papers when I read the following:

"I would definitely vote form Smith O. Jones.  Jones is an excellent candidate, possessing a number of desirable qualities. ...  I am confident that Smith O. Jones is an excellent choice."      

It was a fairly well-written paragraph as far as sentence structure.  The content was vague.  I looked back and realized that I did have a typo in the prompt:  Smith o. Jones" rather than "or"--any student who read the case new that there were two candidates, Smith and Jones, and that they needed to vote for one of those two.  The AI generated response looked good at first glance--but it wasn't on target.  The student got no credit for the response (not because I penalized him for using AI, but because he his answer was not correct.)

I also had a student turn in a paper about the current inflationary environment.  Some things were odd about the paper.  I thought it was just a student with poor writing and critical thinking skills.  The student came to complain about her grade.  As I started trying to show her the problems with her paper and strategies for how to organize material from sources, I realized that her references made no sense.  Some of the sources were from foreign academic journals which were in the discipline but not the subject matter of the paper (e.g. the impact of minimum wage laws in Romania when talking about US inflation)  Other sources were just odd--the paragraph was about inflation in the US for the first quarter of the year but the reference was about Hunter Biden's legal problems (???)  The student blurted "Well that's not my fault. ChatGPT must have messed up my sources!"

So, one needs to use AI carefully.

 

[wendyroo]

I encourage my ADHD high schooler to use ChatGPT as an administrative assistant.

My guidance is to never use it for completing academic assignments, but feel free to give it a try for brainstorming, rote information gathering (that can be easily verified), and email composition (as long as composing the email isn't an assignment).

DS put off writing an email asking about a volunteer position for a month because he didn't "know how to do it". And, while clearly, generations of kids haven't known how to do it and have figured it out when it was important enough to them, this kiddo was really struggling - so I told him to use ChatGPT. It took him several iterations to hone the prompt to get an email that was close to what he wanted...but it got written and edited a bit and sent!!

Things I have used it for:
- What are the publication dates of these 10 books?
- Write an email requesting a school district to pay for an Independent Educational Evaluation. Reference relevant laws.
- Suggest writing prompts for A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
- Teach me Spanish vocabulary words relevant to castles. Include sample sentences.

In all those cases, ChatGPT was very helpful - not perfect, but it accomplished a large portion of the job well enough that it saved me a lot of time.

[Ausmumof3]

This is a thing that is still being figured out. DD is cranky right now because she killed herself trying to get an assignment done over her long weekend as well as studying for exams. She stupidly used an American source with gallons not litres and her teacher decided he thought she’d used ChatGPT to write it. She sent him back her information source and all her handwritten planning documents and all she got back from him was “ok that’s fine” no apology for suggesting she’d cheated 😠

Needless to say she now has zero motivation about that subject. 

[Terabith]

The rule is simple:  we do not contribute to the rise of the robot apocalypse!

[Clarita]

3 hours ago, Toocrazy!! said:

Are you allowed to use it to help problem solve your actual responsibilities like you would another source of info?

For now it's pretty bad at this, so even if you do you'd have to double check it anyways so, why not skip the chatGPT step and look up what you need to know (at best either way spits out similar results). If you want to know why ask it for some recipes (especially for things that need specific instructions). 

3 hours ago, Toocrazy!! said:

Are you allowed to use it to write letters or email responses?

It's super good at crafting letters. My husband uses it all the time for that. Write an email to a client telling them I'm going to charge them $300 for what they want or please write a performance review for someone who did a fantastic job on their projects but need to work on their intrapersonal relationships with their coworkers. Then use what it spits out as a template to fill in all the relevant information that you wouldn't want to tell ChapGPT (you sign an NDA with a company you know what information is sensitive). 

So good at typing up flowery/fluffy letters. So verbose, much more flattering and polite than I can be.

[Clarita]

Honestly I think if you tried it with something you know about, you'll know what it's capabilities are.

[iamonlyone]

I think it can be a good idea generator. I was playing around with it and asked it to write a description of some of our new university offerings and there was one phrase (out of several paragraphs) that I really liked and would have used if I was actually writing promotion for those programs. The test I liked best, though, was when I asked it to give me ideas for a week-long grandma camp (not that I have grandchildren, but it was a fun exercise)!

At the university where I work, they are actively working to incorporate AI in classes and teach how it can be a useful tool, as well as teaching what is unethical use. They know students will use it, so they are looking for ways for students to use it in positive ways.

Also, have you guys looked at Adobe Firefly? Type something crazy specific and it generates images. I think that is an interesting tool, too, for idea generation or even for base images a graphic designer could modify and craft to fit needs.

[Chris in VA]

I played around with it for meal planning help. My parameters were

3 meals, 2 snacks a day

100g protein per day, no more than 45g per meal

1500 to 1800 calories 

Based on Mediterranean diet but adding in 2 servings of red meat a week, no fish except salmon, no pork, white instead of brown rice. I wanted 4 egg-based breakfasts. 

I had it add portion measurements and any recipe links, as well as macros and calories, both per meal and total each day. I first tried a grid but couldn't get it to format well, so I asked for paragraph form.

It's not bad. 

I'm uneasy about AI in general, tho. 

 

 

Edited June 13 by Chris in VA