Course Policy on the use of Generative AI Tools

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Summary: Use AI tools (ChatGPT, Co-Pilot, etc.) to help you in your learning, not to do the assignments for you. Treat them like another student: you can get them to help you, but you are responsible for your own work. Give them proper credit / attribution. Don’t claim their work as your own.

I am quite aware that most LLM chat tools (ChatGPT, Co-Pilot, etc.) can do the work in this class. But (I hope) the goal isn’t just to get the work done, but to learn the material by doing the work. You should not use AI tools to avoid doing the assignments in this class - you can use them as a tool to help you, but not as a replacement.

I encourage you to use AI tools as a collaborator - as you would another student. Think of the AI (ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.) as a fellow student who took the class last year. We know they can do the work. We know they’ve read the readings. They are a good consultant and can answer questions, but you wouldn’t turn in their work as your own - that’s plagiarism.

There is no reason wasting our time grading a chatbot’s responses to the assignments - we know it can do a reasonable job. We want to hear your answer. Not just because we want to check what you know, but also because everyone has a different perspective on things. (I guess we could ask a chatbot to give us 75 highly varied answers to each assignment).

So the general rule: treat an AI tool like you would another student.

  1. Your assignments should come from you. (e.g., don’t turn in a AI’s work as your own)
  2. You are responsible for your work. (e.g., if it gives you bad advice, don’t try to fall back on “an AI told me so”)
  3. Give proper attribution. (e.g., if it helped you, say so)
  4. When in doubt, ask the course staff

Some examples:

  1. It is OK to ask an AI to critique your visualization to get ideas on how to improve it. But, if we ask you to provide a critique of something, you should give us your opinion.
  2. It is OK to ask an AI to fix your writing (e.g. spelling and grammar). It is a slippery slope from a spelling checker to having it come up with the answer. Even something like “the ideas and content come from you, not it” is hazy - use your judgment, and err on the side of giving attribution.
  3. It is OK to ask an AI for help. I ask (the chatbot I am using right now) how to do things in Tableau all the time.
  4. It is OK to get the AI to do (some of) the programming for you. You should be deciding what to program.