This guide is intended to provide professors and administrators with some preliminary information about Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI), including the one students are most familiar with: Open AI's ChatGPT. It is not meant to be definitive, chiefly because the landscape of GAI is changing rapidly as Open AI reacts both to criticisms at large as well as to the lessons it’s learning from current users. While there are other GAI products available, ChatGPT remains the most popular among students.
This guide also is not meant to discuss the many uses of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, but to present professors with an overview of its impact on education and pedagogy. Without doubt, educators are at the very front lines when it comes to the impact of this tool and thus face unique challenges. For instance, if students so elect, they could use ChatGPT to supply either sections of research papers and/or essays or the entire paper, among other assignments. Additionally, ChatGPT is subject to "hallucinations" - providing false information and even falsified citations - and can't be considered completely trustworthy as a source for information. So, just as the Internet is a useful tool for many applications - but unreliable when it comes to accessing scholarly information - so is ChatGPT.
This guide strives to provide professors with a summary of current thinking in academic circles as well as some preliminary suggested approaches based on the curated sources contained in this Guide. Since the AI tool was released in November 2022, a growing body of research is available. Their links are included throughout the guide.
FTC Investigations
The Federal Trade Commission opened an investigation into ChatGPT in July, 2023. The 20-page letter submitted to the company is seeking information to help determine if any consumer protection laws have been broken. The FTC is requesting information on such matters as how Open AI protects against data security breaches, the sources it's using to scrape information, privacy safeguards, and the false, and sometimes defamatory, information it provides to consumers. (See the articles below.) Meanwhile, it opened a separate investigation in January, 2024, into GAI investments and partnerships with regards to Alphabet, Amazon, Anthtopic PBC, Microsoft and OpenAI.
