FYS--First Year Seminar (Fall 2024)

We use artificial intelligence everyday, often without knowing it. Artificial intelligence (AI) is computer programming and learning that simulates human intelligence and learning. Google, Siri, search engines, self-driving cars, automated stocks, and virtual assistants are examples of AI.

Recently, a new form of AI, called generative AI, has been developed. Generative AI can take raw data and make something new out of it. The most famous examples of generative AI are ChatGPT for text-based applications and Dall-E for image-based applications. When used as a tool, AI can be amazing. Students can use it to come up with paper topics, highlight relevant content, test their critical thinking skills, and help make existing content more accessible for those with disabilities. The key is making sure you're using AI as a tool and not reusing AI-generated work for your assignments.

While generative AI programs are incredibly innovative, they also come with some serious concerns. We'll only cover two here.

• They may cite made up resources. ChatGPT will readily create reading lists and work cited pages for your papers, but it is limited to the data they have been trained on (meaning no library resources) and does not contain up-to-date information. To get around this, ChatGPT will completely make up citations to "support" the text it generates. 
   
• They may plagiarize resources. So where does ChatGPT, Dall-E, and other AI chatbots get their data? Generative AI programs require text and images to be "scraped" from existing resources and entered into their datasets. In some cases, companies are transparent as to where they get their work. In many cases though, we don't know and evidence shows that scraped resources may come from copyrighted works without the original creator's permission or knowledge. And it's not just major works. Anything freely found online is targeted, including product reviews and public comments and posts. Further, these programs also lack any way for authors or artists to have their works removed from the program. In fact, when you use these programs, they often are scraping your inquiries into their database as well.

You may be wondering why plagiarism is a problem if generative AI is supposed to be reshaping scraped text and images into something new. The problem is that it's easy to purposefully or accidentally prompt these programs into reusing other people's works, including creating art in another person's copyrighted style or pulling large blocks of text from copyrighted sources, such as entire pages of books. This means that the "generative" and "new" works that these AI programs create may actually be someone else's work. In addition, even when AI generative works don't directly plagiarize, they often reuse ideas and steal core concepts from copyrighted works without crediting the original creators. This is still considered plagiarism.

When used as a tool, AI can be amazing. However, AI-generated work is NOT your work. In some cases, AI-generated materials can actually lead to plagiarism.

To help protect yourself, always make sure to note when you're using AI-generated work, including if you're paraphrasing it. Below are the current recommended citations for AI-generated works.

APA Citation

APA treats AI-generated works the same way that it treats personal communications and cites them as so. This is because AI-generated works cannot be replicated by another person.

In-text

Author of Al Program, Year of version used

Example: (OpenAI, 2023)

 

Reference list

Author of AI Program. (Date). AI tool (version) [Large language model]. URL

Example: OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

See more at the APA website.
 

MLA Citation

Reference list

"Description of prompt used," prompt, AI tool, version, date created, URL.

Examples:

• “Describe the symbolism of the green light in the book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald” prompt. ChatGPT, 13 Feb. version, OpenAI, 8 Mar. 2023, chat.openai.com/chat.

• “Pointillist painting of a sheep in a sunny field of blue flowers” prompt, DALL-E, version 2, OpenAI, 8 Mar. 2023, labs.openai.com/.

See more examples and learn more at the MLA website.
 

Chicago Citation

Chicago does not require you to cite AI-generated works as long as you acknowledge them in your paper (e.g. "The following song was generated by ChatGPT"). However, there are some guidelines if your professor does require citations:

Note

If prompt used is included in text of the paper: Text generated by AI Program Name, Author of AI Program, Month Day, Year, URL.

If the prompt used is not included in the text of the paper:  Text generated by AI Program Name, response to "prompt," Author of AI Program, Month Day, Year, URL.

Examples

Text generated by ChatGPT, OpenAI, March 7, 2023, https://chat.openai.com/chat.

ChatGPT, response to “Explain how to make pizza dough from common household ingredients,” OpenAI, March 7, 2023.

 

See more at the Chicago website.

The content on this page was created by and used with the permission of librarian April Sheppard, Arkansas State University.