Class policy on generative AI

Generative artificial intelligence (AI), as currently exemplified by ChatGPT, is a tool. "AI" is great marketing: ChatGPT does not know anything. When asked a question, an AI is trying to find the statistically best answer from of all the information that it has been exposed to. In many ways, it is simply a better way to search the internet. For some questions, it is very good. For other questions, it returns gibberish. In this sense, AI is just another tool (like a computer, a python interpreter, or mathematics) that helps us. Useful tools are a good thing. They make us more productive.

How and when can you use AI for your classwork in Econ 570?

Coding practice

You are free to use AI on your coding practice. I would strongly suggest that you do not merely copy the question into ChatGPT and see what answer it spits out. The goal of coding practice is to learn to code, and blindly asking an AI will not help you learn. If I think that you have turned in work that you do not understand because you took the answer from somewhere—be it ChatGPT or somewhere else—I may ask you to explain your answer to me before I assign a grade.

Exams

You are allowed to access the internet during exams, but you are not allowed to use interactive services, including products like ChatGPT. This is in the same spirit as the rule that prohibits you from texting someone for help. The goal of exams is to show that you have learned and internalized the techniques we are studying. If you have practiced and studied the material, then you shouldn't need more than a simple web search to jog your memory as to the syntax of a command.