Teaching the AI models for Academic Work

Sometimes I forget that AI can learn from my inputs as well as from inputs from data that is skimmed from the vast sea of information on the internet (don’t forget, only 5% of the internet is visible to you when you access it through a browser, there is a lot that sits in the background too). You can use this to save a lot of time when using AI, and in this case I am mainly discussing generative AI like ChatGPT.

Firstly, my normal warning. As generative AI uses my input to learn, I do not input anything into generative AI, or really any AI tool, that I would not be happy to share publicly. Also, with the Data Protection Act (2018) sensitive data cannot be processed outside of the country of origin without permission of the user. As you never really know where the servers are based for an AI tool, you cannot put in any sensitive information. I would also extend this to anything the students produce, even if you want to ask if it was written by an AI tool.

How can you use learning to make your work quicker?

You can tell the AI model rules to remember, and learn.

I am based in the UK, and therefore use UK English spelling. A lot of AI tools are based within the US, or use the US English language model. Rather than proof reading everything, I can tell the tools that I live in the UK and to use UK English. I can also tell the tools to consider my location when I build case studies. As a paramedic, the role varies considerable by country and I want to use information and inputs that are relevant to my practice and students. I set the rules in any AI tool attached to my account that all answers should be relevant to those in the UK, and based upon information in the UK.

You can also teach it that you teach on specific subjects, and specified levels. I teach accross a number of programmes, and also for academics, so I tend to change this depending on the task I am completing.

I also ask it to recall elements from the last task I asked the model to complete. Such as:

This is so that I could create royalty free images for my Moodle tiles for my new module for next term. I build these, then re-use them year on year. For me to generate something like this would require learning, practice, and I expect what I produce would be no where near this good. As you can see, I also reference the source for best practice.

All of this does require you to set up an account with the AI tools so it can learn the way in which you work. I am using ChatGPT here, but there are more models becoming available. Even just using a search engine now uses AI to summarise my results and gives me summarised text. But, even this is not always correct.