University is an opportunity to learn and grow. Using generative AI tools to complete your work, without taking the time to meaningfully engage with the material, cheats yourself of your learning experience. Using generative AI tools without permission, and passing off the output as your own work, is also academic misconduct—it is cheating. Learn more about generative AI and academic integrity. 

There may be specific cases when generative AI tools can be used to assist your learning. Here are three tips for using generative AI tools with academic integrity: 

1. Seek permission from your instructor to use generative AI tools for academic work. For undergraduate courses, your instructor is required to include a statement in the course syllabus to clarify the permissible use of assistive tools, such as generative artificial intelligence, in the course. If you do not see such a statement, be sure to ask them about it. 

2. Be transparent about how you have used generative AI tools in your work. In consultation with your instructor, you might include: 

• A narrative statement describing what tools you used and how you used them 

• A record of the prompts you used and outputs you generated from the AI tool 

• Citations 

3. Be responsible. Remember that you are responsible for the academic work you submit. Confirm facts and recognize biases. When it comes to your academic work, don't ask generative AI tools to do anything you wouldn't ask another person to do. 

Outside of the university, generated material must also be acknowledged; seek out journal guidelines regarding the use of generative AI tools and review each tool’s terms of use. 

Many generative AI tools collect user data, which may be sold to third parties. Additionally, some tools will keep user prompts and generated outputs as additional data for training their tools. This is a privacy concern, insofar as sensitive or proprietary information could be shared and repeated in future outputs. 

Learn about the privacy settings of your generative AI tool. If possible, turn off the tool’s ability to retain your prompts and outputs. This may be described as “Model Improvement,” as seen below in the screenshot of ChatGPT’s Data controls. Furthermore, refrain from sharing personal and proprietary information. This includes copyrighted material that does not belong to you, e.g. the text of scholarly journal articles, and all notes, slides, assignments, and test questions produced by an instructor and given to students during a course. 

Generative AI tools have a significant environmental impact. In addition to the natural resources that their data centres require and the e-waste they create, they consume an incredible amount of power and water to run and cool their hardware. According to one MIT News article, “Explained: Generative AI’s environmental impact,” “Researchers have estimated that a ChatGPT query consumes about five times more electricity than a simple web search.” Additionally, according to an article from YaleEnvironment360, “As Use of A.I. Soars, So Does the Energy and Water It Requires,” “Google’s data centers used 20 percent more water in 2022 than they did in 2021, and Microsoft’s water use rose by 34 percent in the same period.” As data-centre water consumption increases, it can compete with local municipal water needs and impact surrounding ecosystems. 

Consider the environmental impact of your use of any generative AI tool.

Copyright issues in relation to generative AI tools are currently unfolding. There are questions about how training data for these tools are obtained, what material can be fairly used (e.g. can copyrighted material be used for training these tools?), and if permission should be granted before such material is used. These questions have yet to be answered, but they are being discussed in numerous court cases around the world. The Government of Canada is exploring these issues through its Consultation on Copyright in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act. 

Consider the material that you share with a generative AI tool. Using substantial portions of copyright-protected works (e.g. scholarly journal articles, and all notes, slides, assignments, and test questions produced by an instructor) as inputs or as certain types of outputs may have copyright implications.

Elements of this page have been adopted and adapted from the University of Alberta Library’s Ethical Considerations page in their Using Generative AI guide. This material licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.