AI Tools

The use of ChatGPT or of other AI-generated content is a hot button issue in society at large, and in education in particular. Leiden University first reaction to ChatGPT was to view the use of AI-written texts as a form of plagiarism. Please check out this page first from the Leiden University Library for more, up to date information.

Should you even work with AI?

Even with these directions it may not always be entirely clear what is and is not permissible. There are also understandable arguments for why you would want to use AI-tools. For example, you are convinced AI tools are here to stay and want to learn how to work with them efficiently or you could simply be curious to how they work.

There are also good reasons for why you should not use these AI-tools. For example, they often “hallucinate” (they get critical facts wrong), are not yet well-equipped for referencing sources, have a very generic writing style, and the texts or other content that were used as data to train these AI models may have not been obtained with the (legal) consent of the original creator of that data. Of course, you could also have other ethical, moral, and environmental concerns.

Part of this course is to find out how you and other peers think about digital technologies like AI. Regardless of your own developing ideas on the matter of AI-generation, here are the rules related to AI-generated content in this course.

  • Identify any use of AI. If you use any form of AI-generated content for your own text, audio, or visual content, please identify this at the bottom of your post, formatting this as inline code.

The idea for the blog was drafted with the help of ChatGPT. Paragraph X and a section of paragraph Y were first written using ChatGPT and then rewritten by me. I used midjourney to create image Z.

  • Direct use of text snippets. If you generate a sentence or a few sentences using ChatGPT or any other AI-text generator and replicate this directly in your blog (without rewriting this in your own words), you will do this using a quote block with a reference to the source.

This is an example of a sentence that was generated by ChatGPT, which is in a quoteblock .

ChatGPT
  • No paragraphs or full texts. You should not directly include a full paragraph or more that was generated by ChatGPT or any other AI-text generator, without a substantial rewrite in your own words. Believe us when we say that you’re still a more original and smarter writer. 🙂
  • Use as writing support. If you draft texts in your own words, it is permissible to use ChatGPT or another AI-tool to streamline and/or grammar check your text for you. Please make sure you verify all information and add references (using links) when you use AI in manner as it may introduce factual errors.
  • No hiding behind the AI. 😉 In our class discussions you are always expected to know and be able to explain any content in your post.
  • At your own risk. The plagarism rules around AI content are in flux. While we condone using AI tools within these guidelines and will e.g. not deduct points for using it in this way, no general rights to use AI can be drawn from this.