Before using generative AI, 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the AI model, whether it was trained on incomplete, inaccurate or unrepresentative datasets, or has a limited or outdated scope of information.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; however, there are unique issues involved with generative AI that require its outputs to be carefully evaluated.
For example, generative AI can:
Be influenced by bias, and provide biased information
Be susceptible to "hallucinating," or making up information, content, or sources
Make up convincing looking sources, or attribute information falsely to an existing resource
Use inaccurate and outdated data
Produce irrelevant results
Predict, rather than think
Generative AI cannot actually think or understand information or the relationships between ideas
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.