Generative AI for Students

AI tools may be trained on biased data or information. This may be an outcome of the large amount of data fed into a system or a deliberate loading of biased data to skew responses toward a company or individual's perspective.

These AI responses can perpetuate and amplify existing biases, prejudices, and discrimination resulting in unfair treatment in areas like hiring, lending, housing, and law enforcement. It can also cause viral spread of misinformation about persons of certain ethnic, racial, gender, and sexual orientations.

Multiple author groups, media companies, creatives, and publishers have sued Generative AI companies over the data training, unauthorized use, and sharing of copywritten materials (books, artwork, journal articles) without compensation.

US Copyright protects published works to 75 years beyond the author's death. The US Copyright Office tracks AI copyright issues and rulings. Currently, the US Copyright Office does not cover works created by Generative AI as they are not authored by humans and are absent human creativity in the eyes of their law.

There are multiple concerns regarding the use of AI with individual privacy:

• Generative AI being trained on medical data outside of HIPAA compliance.
• Business and banking systems using customer account data.
• Camera (surveillance, doorbell, security) data creating facial recognition databases.
• State and National governmental systems (IRS, Social Security) data being fed into insecure servers.
• Student work being used outside of FERPA compliance.
• Social media account scraping.
  • It should be noted that almost all social media companies have AI components and terms of service that authorize this usage as a part of having an account on the platform.

Concerns for this data include identity theft, publication of private information, unauthorized third-party use of personal data, data breaches, lack of transparency of data, social media abuses, and facial recognition software issues - especially concerning individuals of color.

Over-reliance on Generative AI Tools can lead to complacency and reduced human oversight of data training, usage, and information processing. This can potentially result in critical failures when the AI tool makes calculation errors, hallucinations, or faces unanticipated scenarios it has not been trained on.

It can also lead to a loss of critical thinking and writing skills as users consume the data and information provided by Generative AI without double-checking what has been provided. This leads to the spread of misinformation when false data and images are widely shared as fact.

The inclusion and spread of intentional misinformation such as deep fake video, altered text, and false reporting also undermine public trust in media and institutions.

AI data centers use a lot of energy to run which can have implications for climate change, energy conservation, and water access.

Large amounts of water are often used to cool data centers. Residents living near data centers have reported air quality issues, water supply issues, and noise issues.