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Home Academic skillsIntro to Generative AI

Intro to Generative AI

AI considerations

Before adopting AI within your studies, we recommend that also students look at the following resources:

Strengths and weaknesses of AI (web)

AI guidelines (web)

Ethics Considerations for the use of AI (web)

Every generative AI, although based around the same principles, will work slightly differently, and have different outputs depending on the prompt given and it’s specialism (text, image, video etc.). There are a range of free generative chat bots (other than Chat GPT) that are powered by AIs (e.g. Copilot, Google Gemini etc.) that can give you an opportunity to experiment with these types of tools.

What is generative AI?

The term artificial intelligence is used frequently in modern society and it’s important that we understand what generative AI is, how it can be used and what the benefits and limits of these system are.

Generative AI uses an element called ‘machine learning’ to generate a variety of content elements based upon the requirements set by the user. These AI systems work by drawing from large data sets and use large language models to analysing the data to find patterns and common arrangements of information, which it can then use predictions to feed back to you based on the prompt you asked.

Generative AI is still developing and each day there are more tools that integrate AI. Most systems build a simple user interface to make it easy to generate and interact with the AI.

Glossary

Artificial Intelligence (AI) – Software that enables machines to complete tasks that imitate intelligent behaviour.

Machine Learning – Computers take information from available data enabling them to develop and adapt based on patterns and data.

Large Language Model – Enables computers to recognise, understand and process our languages.

Generative AI – A machine that uses AI to generate content, which includes a variety of outputs such as images, text, videos etc. in response to human requirements based off a prompt.

Prompt – The question or information that is given to the AI by the human to highlight and inform what they want it to produce.

Strengths and limitations of AI
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