November 30th marks ChatGPT’s 3rd anniversary. The launch of ChatGPT has changed the way everyday people access and interact with Generative AI (GenAI).
People are using GenAI for both academic and personal reasons, just to name a few. Examples include grammar editing, note-taking, meal planning, and activity scheduling. Understanding how to be an effective and responsible user of GenAI is important not only for students but for everyone who uses these tools.
Lindsey Matz Benson, teaching and learning program leader at the University of Minnesota Libraries, answers your questions about how you can better use GenAI.
Q: What are some ethical concerns that adults may have when using AI in their daily lives?
Mats Benson: One concern is the balance between protecting privacy and sharing information through tools. There’s less transparency about what powers many of these tools and what information they collect about users. For example, there are tools that allow you to take a photo and turn it into various cartoon-style images. However, there is less transparency about how uploaded photos are processed, which can be an ethical consideration. Is it worth losing privacy and control over your information to have a cool tool? This also applies to GenAI tools for legal documents and health information. Adults may be concerned about the environmental impact of AI tools or the possibility of building data centers in their area. I think adults are also aware that AI can be used maliciously to create harmful viral or biased content.
Q: What are some tips for using AI responsibly?
Mats Benson: All users of AI need to understand what GenAI tools learn from, i.e., what is in the dataset. This data set does not contain all available information, but it does contain a carefully selected collection of resources from which information can be consciously excluded. That can lead to one-sided or biased answers. GenAI’s output is simply a game of probability, where the system comes up with the most likely response based on what it knows. Sometimes the responses make sense, and sometimes they’re just a word salad. Above all, I think you need to consider when it’s appropriate to use AI and what it’s okay to upload to the tool. AI tools are not ideal for diagnosing medical problems or addressing mental health issues. The best thing to do to be a responsible user of AI is to consider why. It’s about thinking about why we’re using AI for this and why it’s the method of choice.
Q: How can I tell if the information generated by AI is true and reliable?
Mats Benson: While some are clearly generated by AI, it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern what is real. When trying to determine whether something is true and reliable, I ask myself several questions. How plausible is what I am reading or seeing? Can this information be found in multiple places from identifiable sources? What information is included in the content claims or in the librarian’s story? Is there evidence or citations? Is this a balanced or biased perspective on the topic?
Remember, when it comes to video, you know more about the real world than the AI. Do things in the video move naturally? Does the background repeat in a loop? Are there any nonsense elements? Look for the AI Creation Tools watermark on the video and watch for audio sync issues. GenAI has difficulty generating symbols and text in images, so look for misspellings and meaningless words.
Q: What are the most common ethical dilemmas students encounter when using GenAI?
Mats Benson: Students should be aware of this estimated efficiency of GenAI for completing specific coursework and balance the idea of completing assignments with experiencing the subject matter. This further raises the question of what kind of learning experiences are suitable for using GenAI. Although GenAI can enhance the learning experience, it cannot learn anything for you, and its responses may be inaccurate or inefficient in some cases. Students also need to find a balance between using too much of GenAI. What is the appropriate way to approve the use of AI while understanding public misconceptions? If a project requires the use of GenAI in a course, can students object to its use due to environmental impact or ethical considerations?
Q: How does your research at the University of Minnesota help people become better informed citizens?
Mats Benson: My work focuses on teaching the core concepts of information literacy: how to find, use, evaluate, and share information responsibly, not only in academic research but also in everyday life. I spend a lot of time helping undergraduate students learn core research skills. This summer, I had the opportunity to lead the creation of GenAI+U. This is a tool that facilitates student understanding of GenAI tools. I wanted to create something thoughtful and helpful that built on what students might already know. We wanted both the video and text components to be relatable and accessible. It is accessible to everyone, both as a learning experience and as an open educational resource to other schools. Although it was built with undergraduates in mind, I think it lays a strong foundation of important AI literacy skills for anyone.
Lindsey Matz Benson is director of teaching and learning programs at the University of Minnesota Libraries in the Twin Cities. Lindsay’s work focuses on helping libraries embed information literacy into the student experience and guiding the direction of teaching and learning programs across the library. Lindsay is the creator of GenAI+U: A Student Learning Experience, a three-module set of foundational lessons on AI literacy.
About the University of Minnesota Libraries
The University of Minnesota Libraries is a strategic resource for the Twin Cities campus and also provides integrated information systems support for the university’s four campuses in Crookston, Duluth, Morris, and Rochester. The University of Minnesota Libraries consists of 10 library facilities with a collection of more than 8.1 million books and nearly $1 billion worth of special collections. It has strengths in research collections and a long track record of contributing to resource sharing within and across the state. For more information, visit lib.umn.edu.
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