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There are several ethical concerns about GenAI. Sweetman (2023) has created a visualization of “Some Harm Considerations of Large Language Models (LLMs).” These include biased data, carbon footprint, copyright and privacy concerns, exploitative labour, and inequity or access barriers.

There are also ramifications that can affect the integrity of you and your assignment, even if you use GenAI with the best intentions. Its output is biased according to the materials it was trained on, thereby creating a bias in your assignment. Furthermore, the information it was trained on was derived from authors without their consent. Therefore, you cannot properly cite where the information originally came from. Another concern is that GenAI can fabricate references, meaning it creates fake articles with authentic-sounding authors and titles. Finally, if you do not turn off chat history and model training, your own privacy might be at risk. However, note that if you do use GenAI for an assignment, you should save your own record of the chat in case your instructor asks to see it.

See “What are acceptable GenAI uses? What are some alternatives?” to find alternatives to using GenAI.

Reference

Sweetman, R. (2023). Some harm considerations of Large Language Models (LLMs). eCampusOntario H5P Studio. https://h5pstudio.ecampusontario.ca/content/51741

French version: https://etsmtl.libguides.com/IAgenerative/biais