AI Literacy and Ethics

GenAI can be a helpful tool for brainstorming topics, generating keywords for searching, and doing an initial search for scholarly sources within a field. It can also be tempting to ask a GenAI tool for help with writing a paper, re-wording someone else's research output, and the link. Where do we draw the line with using GenAI and academic honesty/plagiarism?

"At Cal State L. A., plagiarism is defined as the act of using ideas, words, or work of another person or persons as if they were one's own, without giving proper credit to the original sources" (Academic Honesty).

Cheating is defined as:

• Copying the work of other persons in whole or in part and claiming authorship

• Submitting a paper obtained from any source that provides research/term papers

• Using a ghostwriter to compose a paper and claiming authorship (Academic Honesty)

If you have questions about whether or not your use of AI is considered plagiarism, you can meet with a Writing Tutor or schedule an appointment with a librarian.

Information from GenAI should be critically evaluated like all other information sources (such as Wikipedia). Since GenAI analyzes patterns from primarily human-authored datasets, biases, omissions and dominant perspectives within our society will be reflected in its response. It also presents information in an authoritative voice, reducing the belief in needing to evaluate the information for bias or incorrect information.

Here are some questions to consider when evaluating your prompt responses.

1. Where did this information come from? Is the source linked?
2. How can I verify this information with other sources? Where can I go to find reputable sources?
3. Whose perspective is represented in this answer? Whose perspective is missing?
4. Who is considered an "authority" on this topic?
5. Where can I go to find additional perspectives on this topic?

Technology companies take billions of works of human creativity from the internet, compile them into data sets, and use the datasets to train generative AI tools. These practices have legal considerations like copyright infringement and call into question whether artists gave consent for their work to be included in training models. What impact can this have on artists livelihoods? Here are a few cases and news stories about AI and copyright issues.

• The Limits of A.I.-Generated Miyazaki
• New York Times sues OpenAI and Microsoft over use of stories to train chatbots
• Revealed: The Authors Whose Pirated Books Are Powering Generative AI

Prompting ChatGPT for information requires four to five times the energy of conducting a Google search (Crawford, 2024).

Generative AI data centers, the facilities that house the computing infrastructure behind Gen AI, consume enormous amounts of water to cool the computer servers and other hardware.

Crawford, K. (2024). Generative AI’s environmental costs are soaring — and mostly secret. Nature (London), 626(8000), 693–693.

Crawford, K. (2024). Generative AI is guzzling water and energy. Nature (London), 626(8000), 693–693.

A Times investigation found that OpenAI, one of the world’s most valuable AI companies, used outsourced underpaid Kenyan laborers, earning less than $2 per hour, to detect and filter toxic content and hate speech.

This can make us reflect on the invisible and traumatic labor that goes into creating and maintaining these technologies.