Before using generative AI, you should consider whether the task you hope to complete can be accomplished successfully by AI, and if so, what AI tool is best suited to the task.
This includes considering the potential shortfalls of a tool, such as what bias impacts the AI model, whether it was trained on incomplete, inaccurate or unrepresentative datasets, or has a limited or outdated scope of information.
The content created by generative AI, such as ChatGPT and DALL-E, need to be evaluated just like any other source you work with; however, there are unique issues involved with generative AI that make the outputs developed require more scrutiny.
For example, generative AI:
Can be influenced by bias, and provide biased information
Are susceptible to "hallucinating," or making up information, content, or sources
Generative AI can make up convincing looking sources, or attribute information falsely to an existing resource
Can have inaccurate and outdated data
Can produce irrelevant results
Predicts, rather than thinks
Does not actually think or understand information or the relationships between information
University of British Columbia Library - Evaluating Information Resources: Generative AI and ChatGPT
Rose, R. (2023). ChatGPT in Higher Education: Artificial Intelligence and its Pedagogical Value. University of North Florida.