As a student, am I allowed to use a Gen-AI tool like ZotGPT in my coursework?
The UCI Policy on Academic Integrity for students states:
“All students are expected to complete a course in compliance with the Instructor's standards. No student shall engage in any activity involving any Academic Integrity Policy Violations. No student shall engage in any activity that involves attempting to receive a grade by means other than honest effort, and shall not aid another student who is attempting to do so.”
Before you use any AI tool, ask yourself:
If you have any doubts, it is best to ask your instructor, and keep in mind that each course may have different standards of what might be acceptable.
If you are permitted to use an AI tool in your work and you have made the decision to use one, it may be a good idea to acknowledge your use as follows:
At this time, citing Generative AI is an evolving conversation, and some style guides have released official guidance on how to cite AI-generated text or images, while others have not. In addition, style guides have differing guidelines of whether tools (or companies) are “authors.”
Here are some examples of differences of how Gen-AI information might be cited in different style guides:
No official guidelines have been released, but the following blog post offers suggestions: “If you’ve used ChatGPT or other AI tools in your research, describe how you used the tool in your Method section or in a comparable section of your paper. For literature reviews or other types of essays or response or reaction papers, you might describe how you used the tool in your introduction. In your text, provide the prompt you used and then any portion of the relevant text that was generated in response.”
For example:
When prompted with “Is the left brain right brain divide real or a metaphor?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that although the two brain hemispheres are somewhat specialized, “the notation that people can be characterized as ‘left-brained’ or ‘right-brained’ is considered to be an oversimplification and a popular myth” (OpenAI, 2023).
Reference
OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat
The Chicago Style FAQ suggests that “conversations” with Gen-AI chatbots can be treated in a similar fashion to private emails or phone conversations that couldn’t be accessed by others. It recommends including information about how the AI tool was prompted, and suggests “you must credit ChatGPT when you reproduce its words within your own work, but unless you include a publicly available URL, that information should be put in the text or in a note–not in a bibliography or reference list.”
For example, if a prompt was not given in-text:
1. ChatGPT, response to “Explain how to make pizza dough from common household ingredients,” OpenAI, March 7, 2023.
The IEEE Editorial Style Manual for Authors (2023) does not offer any official guidance on citing AI-generated content. Some suggest treating AI-generated text similarly to private communication.
The MLA style guide uses a template of core citation elements that are flexible enough to accommodate citing AI-generated text or images. While MLA recommends that you do not treat an AI tool as an author, it suggests you should:
An example of a works cited entry for a paraphrase of text output by ChatGPT might look like this:
“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.
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