What is AI?
Generative AI, often called GenAI, is a type of artificial intelligence that can create output based on training data. Output may include text, audio, image, or video output. ChatGPT is probably the most well-known of these Generative AI tools, but there are many others rapidly being developed.
What is ChatGPT Good and Not Good For?
Remember, you'll always need to verify the information, because ChatGPT will sometimes make things ups (known as "hallucination.")
What is it good for?
- Brainstorming ideas
- Narrowing your topic ideas for a research paper, and keywords for searching in library databases.
- Explaining information in ways that are easy to understand
- Summarizing and outlining
- Asking questions (be sure to fact check the results)
- Translating text to different languages (not completely fluent in every language)
- Helping write or debug computing code
What is it not so good for?
- Library research (not yet). For now, it's best to use library databases.
Note: You may want to try one of these tools that summarize web search results with generative AI.- Perplexity AI
- Microsoft Copilot
- ChatGPT has a new web search feature. Click on the globe icon in the search box to activate it.
- Asking for any information that would have dire consequences if it was incorrect (such as health, financial, legal advice, and so on). This is because of its tendency to sometimes make up answers, but still sound very confident.
