Generative AI

Course projects, assignments and tests help to develop your knowledge and skills so when you finish your program, you’re well equipped for employment or further study. Using GenAI to create content that you have not extended on, modified or engaged with meaningfully means you are presenting work that is not your own and no development has been made with your knowledge and skills.

All college community members are responsible for maintaining academic integrity at Fleming. Using GenAI inappropriately or without explicit permission, to create or re-write your assignment, is cheating. It is the same as asking another person to do your work for you.

Make sure you are always upholding the values of academic integrity - honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility and courage - in all of your work. For more information about Academic Integrity and the consequences of violations visit the Academic Integrity webpage.

It is important to consider equitable accessibility for users when considering GenAI tools. While most generative AI tools are currently free, more and more are applying a cost to access tools. This creates barriers for those who are unable to afford access. At the same time, GenAI tools can also function as accessibility aids for learners.

Generative AI won't state that it is unable to provide a correct answer. Instead, it generates a false answer that appears to be correct, this is known as a “hallucination”.

It is often unknown where the data used to train generative AI has come from. Generative AI can't tell a user what data it drew from to generate content. So, content from generative AI couldn't be used as a credible and reliable source in an assignment.

To avoid using or spreading misinformation, verify the accuracy of AI-generated content using reliable sources before including it in your work. Find more information on evaluating GenAI Output here.

GenAI can potentially create biased output, based on:

• Humans embedding their biases in the creation of GenAI models.
• Biases in the datasets used to train GenAI models.
• GenAI may create it's own bias from how it interprets training data.
• User input may result in biased output.

There are several copyright issues relevant to the development and use of GenAI tools. How the training data is gathered, whether it includes copyright-protected material, and whether permission of a license from the rights holder has been acquired, or needs to be acquired, are all important considerations.

Using substantial portions of copyright-protected works as your inputs or as certain types of outputs with GenAI tools may also have copyright implications.

By submitting your own content (prompts, uploads) to GenAI tools, you may be granting the tool the right to reuse and distribute your content, which may result in a breach of copyright or privacy. You should use caution when submitting content, especially information or data you did not personally create.

For more information about copyright at Fleming, visit the Copyright webpage here.

Development, training and use of GenAI models require systems that use a significant amount of energy and contribute to carbon emissions. They also consume vast amounts of water for cooling. While developers continue to seek more sustainable ways of operating, it is important to consider whether your use of AI is worth the environmental impact and to consider ways GenAI tools can be used more efficiently when possible.

Like other digital tools, generative AI tools collect and store data about users. Signing up to use generative AI tools allows companies to collect data about you. This data can be used to make changes to tools to keep you engaged.

User data may also be sold or given to third parties for marketing or surveillance purposes. When interacting with AI tools, you should be cautious about supplying sensitive information, including personal, confidential, or proprietary information or data.