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Artificial Intelligence in Research

Ethics of AI in University

Depending on your course and the professor's expectations, appropriate uses of AI in your coursework may vary. Overall, it is important to know when it is acceptable and unacceptable to use AI in your classes and academic research.

Appropriate Uses
  • When the use of AI is allowed and encouraged by your professor.
    • Keeping in mind there may be guidelines and restrictions from the professor you may need to follow (e.g. using AI in a specific way for a specific assignment)
  • Using AI to brainstorm your research topic or using it as a tool to become more familiar with your topic.
  • Using it as a study aid, to help study for your exams. You can ask ChatGPT to generate quizzes and questions to help you practice for exams.
  • Aiding with translations. A key benefit of AI is that it may translate text more effectively than translation generators online. However, you should still be reviewing the text and not copying and pasting the text directly.
Inappropriate Uses
  • Using AI in a class when your professor specifically outlines in their syllabus not to use it.
    • If the syllabus does not provide you with appropriate uses of AI in the classroom, students should ask for clarification before assuming it is appropriate to use.
  • Copying and pasting citations/sources generated from AI without researching the sources yourself and determining if they are real and reliable sources.
  • Using AI to generate text for your research and taking credit for having written that text yourself and/or without citing the AI-generated content properly.

Information Literacy & AI

To conduct proper research, individuals should become information literate. By being information literate, you can find, evaluate, use, and cite information properly. Generative AI can hallucinate and generate incorrect information. Therefore, an important aspect of using AI in your research is evaluating the content produced.

Amanda Wheatley and Sandy Hervieux from McGill created a "tool you can use when reading about AI applications to help consider the legitimacy of the technology." It is the ROBOT test.

R
 Reliability
  • How reliable is the information available about the AI technology?
  • If it’s not produced by the party responsible for the AI, what are the author’s credentials? Bias?
  • If it is produced by the party responsible for the AI, how much information are they making available? 
    • Is information only partially available due to trade secrets?
    • How biased is the information that they produce?

O

 Objective

  • What is the goal or objective of the use of AI?
  • What is the goal of sharing information about it?
    • To inform?
    • To convince?
    • To find financial support?

B

 Bias

  • What could create bias in the AI technology?
  • Are there ethical issues associated with this?
  • Are bias or ethical issues acknowledged?
    • By the source of information?
    • By the party responsible for the AI?
    • By its users?

O

 Owner

  • Who is the owner or developer of the AI technology?
  • Who is responsible for it?
    • Is it a private company?
    • The government?
    • A think tank or research group?
  • Who has access to it?
  • Who can use it?

T

 Type

  • Which subtype of AI is it?
  • Is the technology theoretical or applied?
  • What kind of information system does it rely on?
  • Does it rely on human intervention?

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Evaluating AI - ROBOT Test from AI Hervieux, S. & Wheatley, A. (2020). The ROBOT test [Evaluation tool]. The LibrAIry. https://thelibrairy.wordpress.com/2020/03/11/the-robot-test

Evaluating AI-Generated Content

Like all information used in academic research, AI-generated content should be looked at with a critical eye. Generative AI is known to hallucinate or provide incorrect information. This information is often presented in a matter-of-fact way making it seem factual, even providing references/citations to support these findings. However, AI often generates references to sources that are fake and/or are cited incorrectly.

AI still lacks subject expertise; therefore, AI content is best interpreted by users who already have some expertise in the subject area they are asking for content on. Those who already have some subject expertise can more easily evaluate the information AI is generating. Users cannot rely on AI to generate accurate information 100% of the time. Subject expertise is not required to use tools like ChatGPT, as long as the users take the extra steps to compare the information they are given by generative AI with sources they know are reliable. 

A key component of using AI is evaluating it and cross-referencing the information provided by AI with other reliable sources. For this reason, you can treat AI-generated content as a jumping-off point for your research. More reliable sources should be used in your final research, however.

Improving AI Prompts

One way to get the most out of Generative AI interactions is to provide clear, specific prompts. For many of these AI tools, if provided little to work with, AI will generate subpar content. If the use of AI is allowed in your courses, you can use the CLEAR method to help you become better at interacting with AI.

 

C
 Concise
  • Use clear, concise, and specific language in your prompts.
  • Remove unnecessary language to allow AI to focus on the most important aspects of the prompt.
  •  The prompt/question should be specific and direct to achieve the desired response.

L

 Logical

  • Structure information in order of importance in your prompts.
  • Provide a logical flow and order of ideas in your question, so AI can better comprehend and draw connections.
  • Ensure your prompt follows a natural progression of steps you would like AI to follow.

E

 Explicit

  • Provide clear, defined, and specific instructions.
  • Explicit prompts with precise instructions will help the AI tool produce better results. 
  • This helps deter irrelevant, or unhelpful responses. 

A

 Adaptive

  • Be flexible and adjust your prompts to produce a better output.
  • Examine where the prompts could be improved and experiment with reworking prompts.
  • Do not be discouraged if a prompt is not fruitful, rephrase it, and ask AI again.

R

 Reflective

  • Analyze the content AI is providing you and evaluate AI's response in relation to your expectations.
  • Identify areas where you can improve the structuring of your prompts to achieve better results in the future. 

Examples of good prompts:

  • What databases do you recommend I use to find peer-reviewed sources on the topic of ageism?

  • Create a university-level quiz to help me study for my Family Studies class.

  • Generate a concise overview of World War II, focusing on what events led to the start of the war.

  • List and explain 5 benefits of experimental learning in elementary school classrooms.

  • How do I structure an APA student research paper for a university class?

 

CLEAR method is taken from: Lo, L. S. (2023). The CLEAR path: A framework for enhancing information literacy through prompt engineering. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 49(4), 1-3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2023.102720