AI Tools for Assignments and Research

A primary principle of Academic Integrity is openness and transparency regarding what is your work.

Generative AI is a tool that is gaining increasing acceptance, but it must be used ethically and considerately. You need to be open in your use of AI, but you also need to remember that university is preparing you to be a professional, and your use of AI needs to be ethical in the context of your future career and field.

Check your use against the following questions:

• Am I willing to acknowledge my use of an AI tool for this task? How should I acknowledge it?
• Would this be considered cheating if a person did this for me?
• Am I being marked on my ability to do this task, so using this tool is hiding my true ability to do it?
• If I use the tool for this task, will it stop me from properly learning how to do something I should know how to do myself, as a professional in this field?

When you upload files into a GenAI tool, you are usually granting permission for the tool to use your material as part of its training dataset.

This means that your material may be used for other applications in the future without your knowledge.

It also means that you need permission from the copyright holder before uploading any third-party material into a GenAI tool.

Before uploading any material into a GenAI tool (or any tool), check the terms and conditions to see:

• what permissions you need
• what permissions you are granting

If your assignment requires or encourages you to create an AI tool, or use AI to develop something potentially for use by members of the public, it is important to ensure you are developing your tools/products/programmes with Ethics Principles in mind.

The Department of Industry, Science and Resources has developed 8 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Principles to help guide the use and development of AI applications.

These voluntary principles are:

• Human, societal and environmental wellbeing: AI systems should benefit individuals, society and the environment.
• Human-centred values: AI systems should respect human rights, diversity, and the autonomy of individuals.
• Fairness: AI systems should be inclusive and accessible, and should not involve or result in unfair discrimination against individuals, communities or groups.
• Privacy protection and security: AI systems should respect and uphold privacy rights and data protection, and ensure the security of data.
• Reliability and safety: AI systems should reliably operate in accordance with their intended purpose.
• Transparency and explainability: There should be transparency and responsible disclosure so people can understand when they are being significantly impacted by AI, and can find out when an AI system is engaging with them.
• Contestability: When an AI system significantly impacts a person, community, group or environment, there should be a timely process to allow people to challenge the use or outcomes of the AI system.
• Accountability: People responsible for the different phases of the AI system lifecycle should be identifiable and accountable for the outcomes of the AI systems, and human oversight of AI systems should be enabled.
  (Department of Industry, Science and Resources, n.d.)