As you noticed, Artificial Intelligence (AI), wrote the article in our first issue, on Green Aventurine. We’d like to take this opportunity to urge you to use caution, when reading any work done by AI, as recommended by Leesa Collette in this issue. She offers some insights that will prove helpful to us all.

We also want to point out that the article was in no way an endorsement of AI, it was merely a fun experiment. It is a policy requirement of this publication that any article or portion of an article produced using AI must be identified as such.

It is interesting to note that in a recent episode of “Shark Tank” an entrepreneur was seeking support to promote her business of creating “Mama Sing my Song,” a customized song packaged in a stuffed animal, personally tailored to comfort an individual child, based on their likes and experiences. In the process of negotiation, the topic of producing the songs by AI came up as a way to economize on production.  As it turns out, buyers have a choice of AI composition, or one created by human songwriter/ musicians. What would you choose? Guess that’s a personal choice. It would be interesting to see each composition side by side, wouldn’t it?

AI 101

By Leesa Collett

AI (artificial intelligence) has become ubiquitous and controversial. Many people have strong opinions about it without realizing what it is and how often they use it. Some common examples of AI are navigation (GPS), autocorrect, fraud detection, social media friend recommendations, spell check, Alexa/Siri, search recommendations and language translation devices. Simply defined, AI is a machine that can mimic human thinking, reasoning and problem solving.

For example: What’s the best route to a restaurant downtown at this time of day? Ask Google Maps! How to say hello in Mandarin? Ask ChatGPT (你好).

AI is an amazing tool; however, it has its limitations and flaws. How many times have you fought with autocorrect or looked online for a pair of socks just to find ads for socks appearing every time you’re online? It’s not a perfect tool, but it can be useful.

Chatbots (a form of AI) are becoming more and more common, and not just with students who are trying to trick their teachers into thinking they have suddenly become proficient at writing or understanding the symbolism in Macbeth. ChatGPT is probably the most well-known, though there are many others. It is a powerful tool that can be used for more than cheating in school. As reported by Semrush, it can generate ideas, compose emails and social media posts, paraphrase, edit and proofread your writing, solve math problems, summarize data, explain complex topics and translate and write in any language. But it can do so much more! It can create worksheets, write poems, recipes, résumés, write music… And, it’s relatively easy to use.

Before we get carried away into thinking this is the next best thing since handheld calculators, it’s important to mention some caveats. First, there is something called “hallucinations.” This happens when a chatbot presents something as a fact when it isn’t. When asked for the world record for crossing the English Channel on foot, ChatGPT replied, “…the world record for crossing the English Channel on foot is held by Frenchman Stefaan Engels, also known as “Marathon Man.” He completed the feat in 2010, walking across the Channel from England to France.” For obvious reasons, this didn’t happen, and Engels is Belgian. Copilot (available on Edge) did a bit better. It replied, “The world record for crossing the English Channel on foot is held by Nik Haynes, who accomplished this remarkable feat by backstroking across the channel.” Another problem is the possibility of false citations. When asked to create a research piece with intext citations, the citations may be made up. For these reasons, if you choose to use a chatbot for research, check the facts presented and the citations. Also, cite the chatbot as a source. (Google it to find the correct format. When I asked ChatGPT, it did not have current information.)

For those of you who would like to try it out, here are some suggestions to start with, ChatGPT https://chat.openai.com/ and set up a free account. All you need is an email address and a password. Then, decide what you want it to do. Try something entertaining, such as, “What are some fun activities to do with a __ year old?” Or something practical, “What can I prepare with ground beef, onions and avocados?” If you ask it to write something, it is best to use the writing as a guideline. That is, put it into your own words. When a chatbot writes, it tends to sound mechanical, devoid of the human touch. Plus, you don’t want to plagiarize. Also, be as specific as you can in your prompt to get the best response. Asking “What are the effects of climate change?”  yielded a 353-word bullet point response ending with a statement about the “urgent need for mitigation efforts.” When I used the prompt, “Write a 250-word paragraph at the 10th grade level on effects of climate change, a better response was generated.