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Generative AI for Students: What is Generative AI?

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Intro

You've heard all about generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini. But how can you use AI in your academic work? Should you even use AI tools? This guide is designed to help you figure out what generative AI is, and how you can use it effectively and ethically. Navigate by using the tabs above.

First, let's discuss a little bit about what generative AI can and cannot do...

Generative AI is... Generative AI is NOT....
  • Only as accurate as its dataset. There's a lot of bad information on the internet. When the dataset consists of the entire internet, that means the good information and the bad, weird stuff inform the answers you get!
  • One tool of many in your research toolbox. AI is good at certain tasks, but not everything. 
  • Actually intelligent or sentient. Think of it as a very fancy autocomplete.
  • A search engine. While, yes, some search engines have AI tools, just because it's AI doesn't mean it's searching the internet to retrieve answers.

Glossary

  • Generative AI: AI systems that can generate new content, such as text, images, or music. It involves developing algorithms and models that can understand patterns in existing data and use that understanding to generate novel output. 

  • Hallucination: Misinformation or made-up information based on a pattern that the AI model has learned as part of its training. For example, the model could create references that do not actually exist.

  • Prompt: The initial input text or instructions given to a model to generate new content based on that starting point. It provides context and guides the model's output. The prompt can be a few words or sentences that set the tone or specify the desired content. 

These definitions came from Walden University's Key AI Terms Glossary.  You can find more terms in their glossary!