Generative AI Resources

What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

As defined by WGU, AI is “the theory and development of computer programs that are able to do tasks and solve problems that usually require human intelligence. Things like visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and word translation are all things that would normally need human intelligence, but now computer programs are able use their intelligence and capability to solve these tasks.”

What can AI like ChatGPT do?

The most prominent AI tool at the moment is ChatGPT but it’s important to recognize that the development of AI tools will only proliferate and become more sophisticated over time. ChatGPT is an example of a large language model (LLM), which is a type of artificial intelligence algorithm that uses statistical models, deep learning techniques, and massively large data sets to understand, summarize, generate and predict new content in ways that can mimic human intelligence.

ChatGPT, the acronym for “Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer,” is a web-based “chatbot” that responds to user prompts about any topic. The application’s creator, OpenAI, says that ChatGPT can “answer followup questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests.”

However, it is important to note that the application itself does not analyze concepts in the way a student would while writing a paper, or a faculty member would while doing research. The New York Times technology columnist Kevin Roose explained that ChatGPT works, “in extremely oversimplified terms, by making probabilistic guesses about which bits of text belong together in a sequence, based on a statistical model trained on billions of examples of text pulled from all over the internet” (“The Brilliance and Weirdness of ChatGPT,” December 5, 2022). Simply put, it strings together words and phrases that are statistically likely to be related and forms them into grammatically accurate sentences and structured paragraphs. And while it does that very well, it has several notable shortcomings. Among them are: lack of depth, repeated responses, and fabricated citations.

Pedagogical Responses

Faculty should first try the technology and then draw their own conclusions as to how it may impact their teaching and student learning in their classes.

We encourage faculty to use the introduction of the ChatGPT tool as an opportunity to reflect on their teaching practices and broaden learning rather than to immediately jump to simply monitoring student assignments through one of the new ChatGPT detectors.

Here are a few strategies that faculty are encouraged to take in response to AI:

• Revising your academic integrity statement
• Communicating the learning goals and rationale of your assignments
• Considering how AI might influence the design of your assignments and assessments
• Incorporating the practice of AI in your classes.

Currently, there is no Queens College or CUNY-wide policy on the use of ChatGPT and other AI tools. The following resources are examples of how other educators are addressing this issue.

Acknowledgments: Part of this page was repurposed from Baruch CTL’s page “ChatGPT and Its Impact on Teaching in Spring 2023”