InfoSkills voor Rechtswetenschappen

What is generative artificiaI intelligence (GenAI)?

Generative AI creates text, code, images, videos, and other types of content based on an assignment or question from the user (by way of a ‘prompt'). Many people are familiar with at least one generative AI tool: ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI. This Large Language Model (LLM) is trained on enormous amounts of online data to quickly generate text and answer questions based on the prompts that you put in. Other LLMs are Microsoft's CoPilot and Google's Gemini.

How can you use GenAI in your studies?

AI is a powerful and versatile tool you can use to:

• Provide suggestions for paper writing
  When writing a paper, you can use AI chatbots like ChatGPT to:
  • brainstorm / discuss topic ideas
  • explore different perspectives
  • narrow your topic
• Suggest keywords for searching Google Scholar or library databases
• Assist you in writing essays and research papers
• Provide summarizations and explanations
  AI can condense lengty articles into more digestible summaries, helping you understand complex material faster.
• Provide transcriptions of spoken text
  Tools like OpenAI's Whisper can transcribe lectures and meetings for you, capturing spoken content accurately so you can review it later at your own pace.
• Translating text into different languages
• Helping you write or debug computer code

What is GenAI not good for? 

ChatGPT is not designed to be a search engine. It can be a very useful tool, but it's not good for conducting searches for your assignments because it makes up sources. It might give you articles by an author who usually writes about your topic or even identify a journal that published on your topic, but the title, pages numbers, and dates are completely fictional. 

Limitations of GenAI

Watch out for these pitfalls!

• AI-generated content isn’t flawless. AI learns from old data, which can be biased or outdated. Always review and verify AI-generated content!
• Directly copying from LLMs can lead to unintentional plagiarism. Tilburg University defines plagiarism as follows:
  • Using parts of a text written by someone else, or the reasoning or ideas of others for a thesis or other assignment, without due acknowledgement.
  Plagiarism is wrong, dishonest, and can lead to serious consequences. So, use the content generated by AI as a guide, not a final product.
• GenAI usually learns from open sources, which means that materials located in the Deep Web (such as scholarly articles in library databases) are not included. 
• GenAI collects data. Keep your personal information safe!
• Use GenAI as a tool, not a replacement for critical thinking.

Incorporate GenAI into your study routine wisely, and it can be a valuable ally!