Artificial Intelligence tools are inappropriate for use in this course. An important outcome of this course is to strengthen your own abilities as a thinker and communicator. We will not be using AI tools to screen student work for AI input. Instead we will be attentive in our grading to the known deficiencies of AI generated texts that would be flagged as poor writing in any case.

Writing is a form of thinking. It allows us to put things together in ways that we might not otherwise be able to do. While it involves struggle to put things together, there is tremendous satisfaction when suddenly things click into place. Don't deprive yourself of this opportunity to develop your powers of critical thinking and intellectual growth.

Students may be attracted to the use of AI as an efficiency, especially under the pressure of time in a busy 10-week quarter. But you will want to be critical of what AI has to offer:

(1) AI is not a search engine to find the right answer. It is a language machine. This means that what it spits out will have an air of authoritative plausability. Unlike a search engine, you are not given the opportunity to vet your sources and choose among different possibilities. You will need to see how well the "facts" of AI generated text line up with other forms of evidence (i.e., the materials offered in this course).

(2) AI will synthesize answers from diverse sources with a high likelihood of incorporating false information ("hallucinations") and inherent biases and exclusions. It is not transparent in how it sources information and in fact "sources" are often misreported or attributions that are not even real. You will need to be meticulous in citing sources for evidence used in your argument.

(3) There is no "mind" in AI, it is merely creating a language chain based on statistical probability. Any meaning making of what AI spits out is in the mind of the reader. It is important to be critical of what AI cobbles together.

(4) There are important privacy protection issues. You might want to be wary of sharing your personal information in your interactions with this new technology because you will not be able to control how it may be used in the future.

(5) There are also sustainability issues involved with the use of AI. It requires vast amount of resources. A central concern of the content for this course will be to explore how we can use the world's resources in a more sustainable way to ensure our own health and the health of the planet. The use of AI to generate assignments for this course would be counterproductive to the aims of this course and also for the future that we may collectively wish to nurture.

(6) The assignments for this course are structured to encourage you to put things together in a creative way. There is no one right answer. Each student will make their own unique set of connections among the critical concepts presented in lectures, the readings and films, and their own unique investigations, experience, and reflection. AI generated text will tend to be anodyne (bland and neutral) and will likely lack that sense of creative spark or point of view. If I receive an essay that is a typical product of AI, it is unlikely to receive full marks for that reason.

(7) I can't prevent you from using AI in doing your assignments nor is it desirable or possible for me to use AI to detect the student use of AI. And believe me I am being heavily marketed at by products with the unlikely promise to do just that! Nor do I want to create a climate of suspicion and surveillance in the learning environment. I urge you to not give in to the temptation to use it to complete the assignments for this course.