Embracing the artificial intelligence revolution

With the semester coming to a close, students are finally going to get relief from the most stressful part of their year. Whether it be final exams, group projects or the pile-up of deadlines from multiple courses, November and December are the longest, most torturous months of a student’s Fall semester.

However, there is hope yet for those wanting to avoid the same worries in the Winter semester, and it’s with the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Those two words come with a negative connotation, often associated with cheating and “taking the easy way out.”

Contrary to popular belief, the digital tool can be an instrument for aiding students by saving them time on long, hard-to-interpret readings and helping them understand how to improve their writing.

One of the issues encountered by most students with heavy course loads is the sheer amount of reading they are required to do.

Plus, since so many academic texts are written with difficult vocabulary that does not read smoothly, students are forced to pull out their dictionaries on every page.

The solution to this is using AI programs like PopAI or AskYourPDF, which allows students to upload the document in question and then ask the AI questions about it. Not only will the chatbot answer their questions, it will also include the pages it used and justify its answer.

The bots also list a series of sample follow-up questions to help readers interpret the text better and inspire them to ask questions of their own.

If the academic jargon makes texts unreadable, students can use ChatGPT as an interpretive tool. Simply input the piece of writing that confuses you and ask the bot to rewrite it at any grade level or ask it to rewrite it as a series of organized key points.

Make sure to end your prompt with “without losing any information,” so that it can give you a comprehensive and understandable rewrite of your inputted quote without any omissions.

Even outside of academia, artificial intelligence is a viable solution as its generative ability can help facilitate human creativity.

Creators have all run into the same issue before, whether it be artists, writers, videomakers, or any other creators: the blank page syndrome.

Once a creator has a topic or inspiration, their craft becomes remarkably easy for them to undertake and complete, but staring at a blank paper, canvas, or camera can sometimes stump the best creators.

In comes our old friend, ChatGPT, with a way to use generative AI and maintain creativity. As an example, if you’re looking for ideas as inspiration for a YouTube video on cars, you can ask ChatGPT to come up with hundreds of ideas for car videos. Seconds later, the program would spit out a myriad of unique car-related topics for the creator to write scripts for and film videos about!

Another problem that AI can help solve for creative zealots and overloaded students alike is difficulties with editing. Reading our own work can be painful and sometimes even ineffective, as we fail to recognize the same mistakes in our writing that professors do.

ChatGPT makes a third appearance in the problem-solving category as it will accept any writing you give it and answer any questions you may have about it. Paste your writing into the input box and ask ChatGPT to identify grammatical errors, highlight passive voice, and even provide solutions or explanations on how to improve the readability of your writing.

This also avoids the risk of cheating, as the process is more similar to having someone proofread your writing and help you gain an understanding of its strengths and potential issues.

Overall, artificial intelligence should not be underestimated or viewed in a negative light. Rather, it should be seen as the digital equivalent of a Swiss Army Knife. It provides a number of tools to help assist someone in a time of need, but to depend on it all the time would be to your own detriment.

Instead, use it in times of need sparingly and carefully, and in turn, it will make your life that much easier.

All this being said, it is still important to be aware of the AI policies of each course you take. For some courses, any use of artificial intelligence requires instructor approval, for others, only generative AI requires approval.

Remember that artificial intelligence shouldn’t be doing your work for you. Instead use it as a tool for you to work more efficiently and to spark creativity.