Artificial Intelligence

It is crucial to consult your professor and syllabus in each of your courses to determine whether the use of generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, are permitted to use for your coursework or research. 

Generative AI tools may be able to:

• help you study and prepare for exams e.g. generate quizzes or flashcards.
• summarise information on a topic to help you get started.
• recommend authoritative sources on a topic for you to follow up.
• help you improve your grammar, sentence construction and other language skills.
• explain the solution to different types of problems to increase your understanding e.g mathematical problems, coding errors, formulas.
• help you analyse data e.g. create spreadsheets, tables and organise information.
• restore low quality images or video.
• provide creative inspiration or suggestions that you can build on.

(Content derived from University of Queensland Library Guide on Artificial Intelligence CC BY-NC 4.0)

There is potential for you to use Generative AI responsibly to assist you in your studies but there are also risks that you must consider when using this type of technology. Information obtained from ChatGPT should not be considered a primary source and should be used in conjunction with other sources. Additionally, since AI models can sometimes produce incorrect or biased information, it's crucial to verify information obtained from ChatGPT with other sources before including it in your work. It is important to be aware that Information provided by generative AI tools may be:

• Incorrect
• Out of date
• Biased or offensive
• Lacking common sense
• Lacking originality.

Generative AI, such as ChatGPT, have limitations on what information they can provide. For example, ChatGPT doesn’t have access personal information or private data, events that happen after its knowledge cut off (2021), information that is not available in written or spoken form or information about very specific or niche topics that are not widely available publicly.

As with all sources you use in your assignments, you should critically evaluate them for their quality and biases. For help evaluating information from generative AI tools, check out the tab on this guide titled, "AI and Information Literacy".

(Content derived from University of Queensland Library Guide on Artificial Intelligence CC BY-NC 4.0)

Brainstorming

ChatGPT and other generative AI tools can be used for creative inspiration and generating new ideas. It can quickly generate a wide range of ideas and offer diverse and completely new perspectives on almost any topic. You can also revise your requests, ask for clarifications or regenerate the entire response if you are unhappy with the initial result. This enables rapid and risk-free experimentation. In ChatGPT, the chat history is preserved so you can always return to the topic later.

Example prompt (ChatGPT): Give me 10 ideas for a new business venture

Text editing and enhancement

AI-powered tools can assist in various editing tasks such as paraphrasing, summarizing or condensing texts. These tools can help students and faculty in academic writing, research, and content curation. Here are some examples of leveraging AI in text editing and enhancement:

1. Paraphrasing: You can rephrase sentences or passages while preserving the original meaning. AI tools can analyze the context, sentence structure, and semantics to generate alternative versions of the text. This way they can help in avoiding plagiarism, improving readability, and enhancing comprehension.
2. Summarizing: AI tools can quickly analyze documents, articles or reports and generate summaries with the key information. This can be useful when selecting sources and compiling literature reviews.
3. Shortening: AI tools can condense long texts by removing unnecessary or repetitive information while maintaining the original meaning. This can be particularly useful for compressing long articles, research papers, or reports into more concise forms without losing essential details.
4. Extending: AI-powered tools can also assist in extending texts by generating additional content based on the existing material. This can be especially helpful when you need to elaborate on certain points or expand the scope of your writing.
5. Enhancing: AI can offer suggestions to improve the overall quality of the language used in the text. It can identify grammar and punctuation errors, suggest better word choices, and offer improvements in sentence structure, resulting in more polished and professional writing.
6. Synthesizing: AI can be used to analyze, compare and merge information from multiple sources.

Example prompt: Paraphrase/Summarize/Shorten/Extend/Enhance/Synthesize this: (paste your text here)

Translations and language learning

ChatGPT can also be used to translate texts between different languages. It currently understands and generates texts in over 50 languages, although it generally performs better in English. Users can input text in one language and then receive a translation in another. ChatGPT can also assist language learning by providing feedback and suggestions to learners, enhancing their sentence construction, vocabulary, and grammar. It can also simulate diverse conversational scenarios, serving as a valuable resource for practicing language and conversational skills in different situations

Example prompt (ChatGPT): Translate this from English to French: (paste your text here)

Chatting with documents

Third party services such as chatpdf.com and dara.chat can be used for chatting with documents. After uploading your document, you can ask questions and have discussions about the content. However, it's important to remember that all data is processed on OpenAI's servers. Therefore documents containing sensitive information (e.g. personal data, health information, business secrets) should not be uploaded into these services.

Writing and analyzing code

ChatGPT can assist in writing, analyzing and commenting code. It can provide initial code or suggest code snippets based on desired functionalities. It can also be very helpful in troubleshooting and debugging code, optimizing code and offering potential solutions to various coding issues. It can also explain and comment code in detail, assisting beginners in understanding programming concepts and algorithms. Since it's possible to ask follow-up questions and engage in discussions with ChatGPT, the process of revising, experimenting, and finding alternative solutions to code-related problems becomes very efficient.

Example prompt (ChatGPT): Write a Python script that harvests all content from a website and saves it into a spreadsheet

Image generation

AI image generation tools such as DALL-E 2, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion can rapidly generate diverse visual content. By manipulating various parameters and styles, they can produce unique artwork, landscapes, portraits and other types of images, making them very useful tools for artists, designers and other creative professionals. An ideal image generation prompt includes key elements such as a clearly defined subject, medium, style, name of artist(s), website reference (e.g. Artstation), resolution, color, lighting, and other additional details and relevant remarks. In Stable Diffusion, a negative prompt can also be given to exclude elements from the generated image (for example objects, styles or other irregularities).

Example prompt (Stable Diffusion): A photo of an armchair in the shape of an avocado
Source: https://stable-diffusion-art.com/prompt-guide

Other generative AI

In addition to text and images, there are various other types of generative AI that can produce different types of outputs. Some examples include:

• Speech Synthesis: AI models can generate human-like speech, which is useful for applications like virtual assistants, audio books, and voice-overs. Examples: Google Text to Speech, Murf, other AI audio tools
• Music Generation: AI models can generate musical compositions and even imitate the style of specific composers or genres. Examples: Aiva, Soundful, other AI music tools
• Video Generation: AI can generate videos by predicting and generating subsequent frames based on an initial frame or set of frames. Examples: Synthesia, other AI video tools
• 3D Object Generation: AI can generate three-dimensional objects and models, which can be used in fields like gaming, virtual reality, and product design. Examples: Masterpiece Studio, Meshcapade, Mochi, other AI 3D tools