My generative AI guidelines

November 12, 2024

As we grapple with the current generative AI boom, it is important to consider the implications and impacts of such tools. This is my personal policy on utilizing generative AI for instructional materials. It's a living document that I intend to change as I expand my own understanding and new technologies take root. I would love to hear feedback.

This list specifically refers to learning materials I create for student use (e.g. graphics, text content, etc.). It does not cover cases where students interact with generative AI platforms and tools.

Generative AI content cannot be used as a source of information.

Large language models (e.g. ChatGPT) and text-to-image models (e.g. DALL-E) are prone to constructing false, biased, and misleading text and images. Even with refinements to limit known blatant falsehoods and biases, technical limitations of these models prevent them from ever fully dropping these habits.

Using generated media as a source of information risks introducing biased and incorrect information. More fundamentally, it risks teaching students to utilize these models as a reliable source.

The use of generative AI should be disclosed to students.

I want to be transparent about my uses and rationales of these tools to help students learn to recognize the content “in the wild”. This also models responsible disclosure of the use of AI-generated content.

Inaccuracies, flaws, and biases that come to light in generated materials should be addressed with students to help them become critical creators and consumers of AI-generated content.

Part of using these tools responsibly is helping students understand their strengths and limitations. Addressing real-life examples of these limitations will help students differentiate contexts where their use is or isn’t appropriate.

The use of generative AI tools cannot reduce or replace paid human labor that would be utilized if the tools did not exist.

I only use AI tools to augment and improve the materials I would otherwise personally create. AI cannot be used as a cost-cutting measure that impacts people’s livelihood.

Materials created or supplemented with generative AI content cannot generate revenue.

All AI-generated media is a collective product of training data created by countless individual creators that aren’t able to be named or compensated. As such, any materials I create that utilize such media don’t fully belong to me. If I share them beyond my students, it must be in a way that others can freely use and build upon.

The use of generative AI should contribute to student learning and engagement.

Training and generating AI content (especially images and videos) consumes a lot of computing power. At scale, this leaves a large environmental footprint. Uses of these tools should be focused on creating reusable media that will have a tangible, positive impact on student learning. Experiments and excessive revisions should be limited.