Practicum Log # 10: Generative AI and Ethical Practices

Today, I continued work from home on Generative AI. This is an example of the tech industry not being honest and transparent about AI’s capabilities. Students need to be aware that new technology is not always reliable.

Friday, June 14, 2024 from 1:00-5:00 PM

Today, I spent the bulk of my research looking into the ethical issues surrounding generative AI and the industry practices. The first part of my instruction module will be on the myths surrounding AI, and a specific reason that AI cannot always be trusted is due to the lack of transparency and the lack of accountability available to these companies producing generative AI products through Large Language Models. The companies will hire workers from countries with a lower threshold for employee pay and work standards and exploit those employees to make their software more usable for the greater public or misdirect customers by posing actual human work as work produced by their Large Language Model. By understanding that generative AI technology is not as developed as the companies pose, I hope to show students that using these products might be supporting companies’ unethical practices, and they need to be aware of those practices before trusting them to help in their academic work.

Additionally, I worked on mapping out the different resources that could be useful and helpful in instruction, but I still need to narrow down the focus of the instruction into the 30-45 minute timeframe. This has been a beast of a project, and I know will continue to be so as I struggle to get an organizational structure to the content. However, I feel like the instruction is finally starting to take shape. I’m hoping to create both a video for asynchronous instruction and a presentation that the instructional librarians can use throughout the year. I worked on making a spreadsheet to keep track of all of my resources to use in instruction and to track for a works cited page. If nothing else, this internship has shown me how much time instruction librarians spend doing research on a topic and then breaking that research down into a digestible chunk of instruction for students. I know they spend much more time during the school year in engaging and directly connecting with students, but this time in the summer is valuable for developing programming and instruction.

Full Schedule: l will be working 10:00-2:00 from May 28th to June 7th, M-F online. (The campus is undergoing some construction and all of the librarians are working from home.)

Then, from June 10 - July 19th, I will be working 1:00-5:00 on campus at Southwestern University. I will more than likely finish by July 12th, but I'm adding a week for wiggle room. This should lead to 128 hours.