AI Statements for Course Syllabi

“You are welcome to use artificial intelligence (AI) tools and applications (such as Copilot, DALL-E, etc.) in this class as they support the learning objectives of this course. Please be aware you are responsible for the information you submit based on an AI query (i.e. ensure your professor has allowed you to publicly post course content such as assignment or assessment prompts and that the AI generated results do not contain misinformation or unethical content). Your use of AI tools must be documented and cited to conform to this course’s expectations.”

If using this option, it is important to explain the steps students should follow – for example, how to cite work and whether students should turn in, or at least retain, chat transcripts. Encourage students to contact you with questions or concerns.

“We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools and applications (such as Copilot, DALL-E, etc.) in some circumstances in this course as they support the course learning objectives. The specifics of when, where and how these tools are permitted will be included with each assignment, along with guidance for attribution. Any use of these tools other than where indicated is a violation of this course’s expectations and will be addressed through UW–Madison’s academic misconduct policy, specifically UWS 14.03(1)b (b) Uses unauthorized materials or fabricated data in any academic exercise.”

If using this option, it is important to explain the steps students should follow – for example, how to cite work and whether students should turn in, or at least retain, chat transcripts. Encourage students to contact you with questions or concerns.

“The use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools and applications (including, but not limited to, Copilot, DALL-E, and others) for course assignments and assessments does not support the learning objectives of this course and is prohibited. Using them in any way for this course is a violation of the course’s expectations and will be addressed through UW–Madison’s academic misconduct policy, specifically UWS 14.03(1)b (b) Uses unauthorized materials or fabricated data in any academic exercise.”

If using this option, it is important to explain to students why AI is prohibited in the context of what they are learning, or are expected to learn, in the course.

All students are required to commit to the following statement: “I know that in this course I can use ChatGPT (and other AI models), but I must always apply critical thinking to anything ChatGPT (or other AI models) tell me AND I must always make a Gradebook Comment (not a Discussion Board post, but a Gradebook Comment) telling the instructor and TAs whenever I have used ChatGPT (or other AI models) and how I have used them.

ChatGPT and other Large Language Models have become disruptors in the space of authenticity and attribution: We will be attempting to understand and even embrace the advent of text generators, exploring how they can help us learn more and write better. However, I am aware of the challenges: if you rely on a bot to write a significant part of your paper, that is not exactly the same as “copying from someone else” — you aren’t taking credit for any other specific person’s ideas, but you are benefiting from the collected and assimilated ideas that have been scraped from the “hive mind.” That hive mind is made up of untold numbers of texts that have been used to train the bot. Some training materials have been used without the permission of the original authors, and at times it could be that the bot has been trained on material that is non-verifiable and deeply flawed. When you use a bot to do your writing, you aren’t providing your own original ideas, either.

We’ll talk about how and when to use text generators like ChatGPT in this class. There are productive ways to use it to help (with both idea generation and with editing) that I will allow and in fact encourage, but this class is going to focus on your efforts to research, understand, synthesize, organize, evaluate, and ultimately write your own unique work. Use the class to develop your own writing, rather than seeking ways to avoid developing and educating yourself. You will know your technical projects better — and be able to speak publicly about those projects in a much more credible manner — if you’ve committed to the challenge of writing your own work. When you DO decide to use a text generator in some limited way, I will expect you to provide a detailed footnote or Appendix describing how and approximately where it was used in your work. Of course, my expectation will be that you’ve used it in a strategic and limited way, which we will discuss in class in more detail.

Generative AI technologies will impact many aspects of the engineering workplace, including the way we craft communications. As a result, this course explores the potential for AI to refine your speaking, writing, and listening skills to better meet on-the-job challenges and strengthen your professional contributions to contemporary society. It will also explore the pitfalls of AI technology as it currently exists.

Since this course explicitly engages with generative AI platforms, there are no restrictions on the use of AI for any assignment. However, note that I do not require the use of these platforms for any graded assignment aside from the AI demos/workshops. Whatever your preference, we will explore these platforms together during class time to achieve the core learning objective of developing your capacity to effectively and responsibly use AI writing platforms.

Here are some guiding principles to keep in mind when pursuing this objective:

• Transparency builds credibility; always make sure readers know where you are getting your information from and how you are producing your content.
• Authorship entails responsibility; as an author, you are ultimately responsible for the accuracy of the information in your writing.
• AI requires human judgment; you will need to sharpen and use your own judgment on the proper times and places to use AI writing in general, the proper times and places to use AI writing in the writing process itself, and the best forms of prompting based on foundational rhetorical considerations of audience, purpose, context, and so on.
• AI raises the bar for quality communications; to elevate AI content beyond its “house style” to the level of superior writing, you will need to make significant interventions in your prompts and/or in your revisions to AI output to accommodate the nuances of argumentation, localization, and audience that distinguish good writing and speaking.

If I sense that AI platforms have negatively affecting your writing – by making it too boilerplate, for example, or by hallucinating sources – we will have a conversation about how you have used these platforms and how you might use them better in the future. And if you have questions about whether a particular use of generative writing is acceptable, bring the question to me!

ChatGPT and other AI/Large Language Models (LLMs)

As we’ll learn in this class, new technologies rarely replace old ones; they co-evolve and co-exist. So, until AI robots fully replace us, this class aims to teach you how to critically analyze, think about, and work with a variety of technologies, including ChatGPT and other AI. Some assignments and activities will explicitly ask you to use ChatGPT while others may forbid it. For each assignment, we will provide a statement about how/when AI might be used, and what it might be used for, like idea generation, writing assistance, fact finding, etc. (though no assignment will *require* it). The most important thing is to be transparent and ethical about your use of LLMs, since AI raises issues of intellectual property, academic integrity, misinformation and more. Just as the links to YouTube videos you use in your projects or citations of Wikipedia and academic articles allow us to assess where you sourced your information from, including a statement about where and how you used AI during your assignments helps us see the work you’ve done (e.g. prompt engineering, collaborative writing, idea generation, etc.). Example statements will be provided at the start of the semester. And as with the other sources you use for your writing and projects, you are solely responsible for the quality, accuracy, legality and validity of the content of anything you submit.