AI Chatbot Policy Example
The policy for this course is as follows:
- You ARE allowed to use ChatGPT, Google Bard, Bing AI, or similar AI chatbots as you would a library resource. For example, you can use ChatGPT to find solutions for errors the same way you would use Stackoverflow or other Internet resources, or to understand and improve software you are developing.
- You ARE allowed to use AI chatbots to verify algorithms. You will learn more if you develop your algorithms yourself and use a chatbot to verify them, rather than taking the shortcut of simply (for example) asking ChatGPT to generate the algorithms for you. In fact, you'll learn more about both the problem you are trying to solve and the critical thinking skills that AI cannot replace. In your career, there are guaranteed to be problems for which AI cannot propose algorithms or solutions. If you have not developed the critical thinking skills to develop solution algorithms on your own, you will be unable to deliver the value your employer expects from a practicing engineer.
- You ARE allowed to use AI chatbots for small snippets of code, as you would by using online reference like Reddit or a language-specific website that helps engineers understand how to implement certain tasks in different programming languages. In industry, you must be careful that small snippets obtained regardless of the source do not introduce software license restrictions or the possibility of copyright, trademark, trade secret, or confidentiality agreement violations that could put your company at great legal peril. That's why you should be cautiously selective about the number and size of code snippets you include in commercial products, whether they come from programming websites or an AI chatbot. It is wiser and safer to adapt the principles demonstrated in those snippets to your own code, and to the context in which the snippets need to run in the software system you are helping develop, rather than simply pasting something into your code verbatim. Practicing this kind of appropriate use as a student will help establish a foundation for behaviors in your career that will be consistent with your employer's code of ethics.
- You ARE allowed to use chatbots in manners similar to the above for generating written reports or other creative elements (not whole blocks or reports). These uses come with the same possibilities of not learning to think, write, or be creative on your own, and as a result being less able to fulfill employer expectations for high-quality written documents or uniquely creative non-code-related work products.
While you are allowed to use AI chatbots as described above, they are not a panacea. You should never blindly submit something based on AI chatbots without using critical thinking and good judgment to assess the correctness and validity of their results. You won't get proper credit for work based on incorrect or invalid output from these (or any!) sources. (Assessing validity is a wise practice for any tool or source of information you use. Just as you would ignore an Internet source if you determined that the information it provided was wrong, it's no different to apply that same level of discernment to the output of AI chatbots.) And abdicating your creative thought processes to any tool won't necessarily grow your abilities to think creatively, unless you shift your creative focus to other areas. So be thoughtful and judicious about how much you use these or any tools as a replacement for your work rather than a just as a supplement to it.
If you are unsure if your intended use of an AI chatbot matches any of the above purposes, send me an email explaining your planned use, and I will give you feedback on whether or not I would consider this to be an allowable use both in the course and in industry.
- You ARE NOT allowed to use AI chatbots to simply write your software for you, or write your documents for you. Just as you have tools to generate code and documents, we instructors have tools to identify code and documents that were generated. Any student that submits generated responses will be subject to an Academic Integrity violation. Here's why:
Our goal at OSU is to prepare you for a career in industry, where you will be expected to solve problems through critical thinking, and adhere to industry norms for high- integrity, ethical behavior. You will not be expected to let a tool do all your work for you, without you yourself understanding the engineering problem solving process, recognizing whether what you are asking it to do is within its capability, applying it in an appropriate manner, and then being able to assess if its results are credible and reliable enough to be trusted as the basis for making business-critical decisions.
If you want to start to use AI chatbots for the described allowed purposes so you understand the capabilities and limitations of these tools, that's good preparation for being in industry with a broad toolkit at your disposal, and behaviors that mimic industry best practices both technically and ethically. If you want to use AI chatbots to do your work for you so you can skate by at OSU with minimal thought and effort, you will limit your career opportunities to those that do not require the level of diligence, thoughtfulness, professionalism, integrity, and ethics that are the hallmarks of high- performing software engineers.
There is no question that the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning tools will continue to increase in the fields of software engineering and computer science. At their current stage of development, they are language models that can generate text based on input, and have been successfully able to generate code as well. However, they were not designed to be learning tools, or to understand the context or nuances of a particular software problem. And they are not the only tools or technologies you will need to use to develop software, so it is still important that you learn and develop a strong foundation in the fundamental principles and concepts of software development. This will enable you to understand and adapt to new technologies and tools as they emerge during your software career, and use them effectively and responsibly on behalf of your employer.