AI Literacy in the Age of ChatGPT

Liberally-educated students need to be more than consumers of AI - Ted Underwood, Professor of Information Sciences and English at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Elements of AI - University of Helsinki
Free course for learning about AI in general.

ChatGPT is everywhere. Here’s where it came from - Will Douglas Heaven, MIT Technology Review
Useful history.

The Acceleration of Artificial Intelligence - Anna-Sofia Lesiv
An interesting summary of the development of today’s generative AI. It’s useful for understanding the 2017 breakthrough (transformer architecture) that led to so much that’s happening now.

A jargon-free explanation of how AI large language models work - Timothy B. Lee and Sean Trott
Learn about word vectors, transformers, and more.

Generative AI exists because of the transformer - Visual Storytelling Team and Madhumita Murgia, Financial Times
Useful explanation with helpful visuals.

Why does chatGPT make up fake academic papers? - Twitter thread by David Smerdon, Univ. of Queensland
Very good explanation.

Large language models from scratch and Large Language Models: Part 2 (videos) - Graphics in 5 Minutes on YouTube

What is Reinforcement Learning From Human Feedback (RLHF) - Alex McFarland
Useful explanation.

It’s worth reading these policies and FAQs from OpenAI:

• How your data is used to improve model performance
• Privacy policy | API data privacy
• How ChatGPT and Our Language Models Are Developed
• How do I access plugins?

Suspicion, Cheating and Bans: A.I. Hits America’s Schools (The Daily: podcast episode)
Hear directly from students and one instructor about how they use ChatGPT for their work.

Teaching: Will ChatGPT Change the Way You Teach? (Chronicle Teaching)
How to thoughtfully incorporate ChatGPT into course discussions and assignments to encourage critical thinking from students in their engagement with these tools.

A Survival Guide to AI and Teaching pt.7: Inoculating Our Students (and Ourselves!) Against Mis- and Disinformation in the Age of AI (Temple University)
"Our task as educators is to prepare our students to navigate an information environment characterized by the use of generative AI by inoculating against disinformation, helping them develop the skill and habit of verifying information, and building a conception of the components of a healthy information environment."

AI Guidance (Yale Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning)
Suggestions for how to adapt your teaching in light of quickly developing AI capabilities.

Accessibility Powered by AI: How Artificial Intelligence Can Help Universalize Access to Digital Content
Using generative AI to improve accessibility.

AI and the Future of Undergraduate Writing (Chronicle)
Reiterating the importance of focusing on good pedagogy and student engagement rather than fearing ChatGPT.

Critical AI, new interdisciplinary journal (Rutgers and Duke)
Follow the new journal at the link provided, or check out the blog feed site including, “research, reviews, and commentary by interdisciplinary scholars in a wide range of AI-adjacent fields, as well as posts by faculty and students affiliated with the Critical AI @ Rutgers initiative.”

Educator considerations for ChatGPT (Open AI) From the creators of ChatGPT.
Based on feedback from educators from a number of institutions. Covers ethics and literacy, truthfulness, bias, assessment, equity, and more.

Understanding AI Writing Tools and their Uses for Teaching and Learning at UC Berkeley.  Berkeley Center for Teaching and Learning

How ChatGPT Could Help or Hurt Students With Disabilities (Chronicle)
How to work in collaboration with students to use these tools to support their learning rather than it being used in a panic to plagiarize.

I’m a student. You have no idea how much we’re using ChatGPT (Chronicle)
A student’s perspective on how undergraduates are using ChatGPT. Includes a discussion on how instructors could think about incorporating this tool in assignments while ensuring it’s not possible to use it in other assignments.

Handout: AI and the Future of Teaching and Learning - U.S. Dept of Education, Office of Educational Technology (PDF)
Two-page list of key insights and recommendations from the U.S. Dept. of Education.

The AI Reader: Is there meaning in the machine-generated? (Dirt) On reading AI-generated works, machine creativity, and the spectrum of human authorship for ChatGPT’s impact on how we read and write.

Special issue: Critical AI a Field in Formation, American Literature (Duke) “This special issue provides an overview of the emerging interdisciplinary field of Critical AI, which seeks to demystify artificial intelligence; counter its mythologizing as a marvelous and impenetrable black box; and translate, interpret, and critique its operations, from data collection and model architecture to decision making. Artists and researchers are developing new methods, practices, and concepts for this critical project, which is both historicist and attentive to the institutional, technological, and epistemic transformations still underway.”

How we can teach children so they survive AI – and cope with whatever comes next (George Monbiot) "Schoolchildren should be taught to understand how thinking works, from neuroscience to cultural conditioning; how to observe and interrogate their thought processes; and how and why they might become vulnerable to disinformation and exploitation."

Studies suggest that AI-based chatbots have a positive impact on college students, improving their mental health and overall learning experience. See:

• Lee, YF., Hwang, GJ. & Chen, PY. Impacts of an AI-based chatbot on college students’ after-class review, academic performance, self-efficacy, learning attitude, and motivation. Education Tech Research Dev, 70, 1843–1865 (2022).
• Hew, K.F., Huang, W., Du, J. et al.Using chatbots to support student goal setting and social presence in fully online activities: learner engagement and perceptions.  J Comput High Educ 35, 40–68 (2023).

Copyright issues
Generative AI Meets Copyright - Pamela Samuelson, Professor of Law, UC Berkeley (YouTube)
Recording of a talk she gave, summarizing the outstanding cases. "It will take years for this to be resolved in the courts."

Prof. Matthew Sag Testimony on Copyright and AI (PDF), Testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, July 12, 2023.

Letter to the U.S. Copyright Office from the Library Copyright Alliance (The American Library Association and The Association of Research Libraries). Oct, 31, 2023. (download the PDF) Supports the idea that training data for generative AI should be considered fair use.

Bias
AI expert Meredith Broussard: ‘Racism, sexism and ableism are systemic problems’ - The Guardian
Racism, sexism and ableism are systemic problems that are baked into our technological systems because they’re baked into society. It would be great if the fix were more data. But more data won’t fix our technological systems if the underlying problem is society.

A Radical Plan to Make AI Good, Not Evil
OpenAI competitor Anthropic, on using AI to train AI (instead of humans). They call it “constitutional AI.”

Identifying AI-created content
Is badging a solution? (badging AI vs badging human created content)

• Not by AI - Ideas for a badge for human created content.
• Watermarking ChatGPT, DALL-E and Other Generative AIs Could Help Protect Against Fraud and Misinformation - Berkeley iSchool

Generative AI is forcing people to rethink what it means to be authentic - The Conversation

Postplagiarism

Eaton, S.E. Postplagiarism: transdisciplinary ethics and integrity in the age of artificial intelligence and neurotechnology. Int J Educ Integr 19, 23 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40979-023-00144-1