Fall 2023 Post 03: Writing with AI

 I am introducing artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of large language models (LLM) into my writing classes. We will use one LLM tool, Google's Bard, in our writing this term.

Unless you have been living under a rock in Mongolia, you've heard of the LLM ChatGPT by OpenAI, the fastest growing app in the history of the Net. It is fair to say that this app exploded onto the scene – a cliche, but true. So what is an LLM?

For the general user such as you and me, an LLM is an online tool that uses natural language such as English to interact with users and to help them work or play. In more technical terms, the online information company Elastic NV defines large language models this way:

A large language model (LLM) is a deep learning algorithm that can perform a variety of natural language processing (NLP) tasks. Large language models use transformer models and are trained using massive datasets — hence, large. This enables them to recognize, translate, predict, or generate text or other content.

Though ChatGPT is the most famous LLM, others exist, and many more are being created every week. As Wikipedia says:

Notable examples include OpenAI's GPT models (e.g., GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, used in ChatGPT), Google's PaLM (used in Bard), and Meta's LLaMa, as well as BLOOM, Ernie 3.0 Titan, and Anthropic's Claude 2.

NOTE: Yes, I use Wikipedia. Though many teachers don't trust it, I do. You may use it in this class. However, before you use Wikipedia in your other classes, always ask your teachers if they allow it. If they don't like it, then don't use it.

In this class, we will use Google's Bard to help us write the best documents that we can. We could use the others, and I invite you to try them all as they each have some capability that the others don't, but we are already using lots of Google tools, so Bard keeps our work in the family, so to speak.

You've likely heard that LLMs such as Bard and ChatGPT can write your papers for you. They can. So why am I using Bard in a writing class? Because LLMs are here to stay, and I think we need to learn how to use them to get our academic work done. For instance, I have used Bard to generate ideas about how to teach college students to use Bard for academic writing. I have used many of the ideas Bard generated. You can do the same in your essays.

Not everyone in academia is resistant to AI. In his blog post "On holding back the strange AI tide," Professor Ethan Mollick of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania defends the use of AI in education this way:

AI is far from a negative in education. We are very close to the long-term dream of tutoring at scale, and many other advances promise to make the lives of teachers easier, while improving outcomes for students and parents. Next, we need to articulate a vision for what radically changed education could look like. We need to think about how to incorporate AI into how we teach, and how our students learn. There is tremendous opportunity here to democratize access to education and reach out to all students, of all ability levels, but we can’t just keep doing what we always did and hope things won’t change. 

The only bad way to react to AI is to pretend it doesn’t change anything.

I agree that AI such as Bard will change everything. I must tell you, however, that using an LLM is still highly controversial in higher education. Many of your professors will resist LLMs, and they may refuse to grade any of your work that is generated with the assistance of an LLM. They may accuse you of plagiarism, with dire consequences for your grades or even your academic career. So please don't take use of Bard lightly. It is a powerful tool that can lead to powerful good – and powerful bad. Be careful.

Fortunately, I am teaching you how to use an LLM to help you write your own essays. I am not teaching you how to use an LLM to write an essay for you. I do not accept any essay that has been written solely by Bard, and if you persist with using Bard to write your essays in this class, then you will not pass. Please keep that in mind.

You can guard yourself by recognizing that you may be your own worst enemy. You are all busy adults with many obligations other than your school work. Despite your best planning and efforts, you may find yourself pinched for time and up against a deadline. You will be highly tempted to ask Bard to write your essay for you, especially when you realize that it can spit out 800 words in beautiful, grammatically correct prose in under 60 seconds. Don't do it. I will likely find out, and I will not accept work from Bard for a grade for you.

So what's the benefit of using Bard? There are many, but a few include:

• Brainstorming: Bard can help you generate more ideas than you will use about almost any topic.
• Concept clarification: Bard can simplify complex academic concepts or terms.
• Summarization: Bard can generate concise summaries of articles, books, and research papers.
• Draft creation: Bard can help in creating initial outlines or drafts for essays, reports, or presentations.
• Source identification: Bard can assist in finding relevant sources, citations, and references. 
• Quality assurance: Bard can check for accuracy, consistency, and potential plagiarism in your work. Bard can also help you edit your writing to ensure academic level grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

These are very powerful capabilities that Bard can bring to your writing, and it can do so at the push of a button. Because you are busy adults, you can benefit greatly from that kind of power at that kind of speed. In this class, you will use Bard to become a better writer. Mostly, you will learn to use Bard as an assistant, or a tutor. You will use Bard to help you learn, not to do your work for you. If Bard does the work for you, then you don't learn anything. Why waste all this money and effort not to learn?

By now, you've had some experience with using Bard and perhaps ChatGPT, so leave a comment about using AI in the college classroom. Say something worth reading.