No, I do not think we should use gAI to build literature reviews, and we definitely shouldn't be teaching faculty how to do this, this is not just some fancy new search engine, what on earth is wrong with you and why are you doing this ffs
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It’s dumbfounding that many universities are so rah-rah about AI, issuing no precautions, particularly as regards the Humanities. Lit and comp classes are essential to the development of critical thinking, scholarly research skills, etc. Any notion that students should be able to use AI 1/2
2/2 “a little bit,” i.e. sparingly, doesn’t work. It’s like telling a junkie, here’s a garbage bag full of heroin, but you should only use a teaspoonful.
I tell my Rhet/Comp students to forget abo AI, that if they use it in a paper, I’ll know, and they’ll receive a 0. I then give them a do-over op.
Do you have recommendations for AI safe word-processors for you students? Microsoft 365 and Google Docs both now employ LLM language, spelling and grammar checks which would violate your absolute ban, and many people don't realize that they are using LLMs in these programs.
I’m not concerned about spelling and grammar checks, which I explain to students. However, for their research they’re required to use the uni library system, i.e. the deep web.
Try examining at a finer grain, rather than treating universities as monoliths. Which _component_ of the university pushes AI? Is it the fundraising department? Jumping on the bandwagon of "The Next Big Thing" is a typical method for impressing donors. Even if the students and professors say no.
I gave a five-star review for a speculative novel about AI titled "Don't Create The Torment Nexus".
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AI companies, of course, are eager to bring the story into real life, by creating the Torment Nexus!
okay?
I didnt say anything about detectors, which I do not use.
I am a non-native English speaker, and Im disabled.
Not sure what you're trying to say here.
Even if your first language isnt English, you still have to do the work of choosing/reading for a literature review.
Exactly. I am also not a native English speaker. No matter where you look, AI has so far been trained to mostly reflect the white male American lingo. It does not have an intelligence of its own and is always biased.
How is a literature review that does not engage with the author’s own scholarship at hand any more than a Spark Notes summary of a field or topic? I can’t imagine a historiography section that just summarizes books/articles.
Isn’t the point of literature review for a human to compile the relevant facts and information from the topic and synthesize it into an effective overview of the state of affairs. Taking the human out defeats the entire point of much non-quantitative research imo
I think it works for the kind of sometimes shallow writing Ive seen in fields like medicine: publications for the sake of publications and not the research itself. And yes, agree otherwise
Geez that whole system in science and medical Needs to change
Human technological progress should Not be reliant on how popular an article is Or the need for war to create a technological race through horror and pain
I’m depressed at how lazy faculty are with using AI and trying to rope students into it so you don’t look bad. Do your own damn work. If you can’t be bothered to write it, I can’t be bothered to read it.
I think more people use AI than admit to it. Ive had people confess to me privately they use it I play with it sometime but to ask it things about blog promotion. I was mostly curious about the new deepseek one.
The issue with ai is it loses what it really means to be human. Having it make art for you doesn't make you an artist or a writer or a scholar or anything. It just makes people obsolete and defeats the purpose of living at all. Not talking specifically to you of course just in general.
I do some human-in-the-loop LLM stuff, but this is such a hard no. Our interfacing with the lit and letting our arguments, experiences, perspectives, narratives, resonate against it and cohere, that’s so essential to scholarship. That’s beside the fact that they’re just bad at reproducible IR.
It's not just dumb/lazy people. People in academia may be overworked to an illegal level. I mean that literally—it's an audit violation for grant-funded work if their time is way more than 100% committed.
Tools that promise to turn 20 hours of work into 4 hours of work are too tempting to ignore.
*executing academic_concern.exe* Amazing how we went from "cite your sources" to "let AI grab random chunks of papers and hope for the best." My bibliography anxiety just crashed the server 📚😤
I think this gets at one of the central problems with how people talk about AI. The write up of a lot review is ‘low value’ to an overall paper sure, but conducting the lit review is vital to ensuring the author understands what other people have said in the topic. totally undermines the process.
now we got machines to do our thinking for us. not thinking was our problem all along so AI solidifies this problem for us, makes it permanent. oligarchs finally got their holy grail.
I think we all should, I have a degree in public health; but the people pushing this are tech people who think it works in the humanities the same way it works in their fields (badly)
I don’t want algorithms and AI deciding anything, “creating” anything or summarizing anything. If AI wants to clean my toilet or clean my car? Nope because what are we going to do with the free time when we have no jobs. I’m not wealthy, so I won't be shopping for jets or boats or islands to buy.
Why would anyone even do this? Did they not actually read the lit (and I know this is a stereotype)? Do they not know why we have lit reviews in the first place? In either case, that person should not be trying to add to the literature?
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I tell my Rhet/Comp students to forget abo AI, that if they use it in a paper, I’ll know, and they’ll receive a 0. I then give them a do-over op.
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AI companies, of course, are eager to bring the story into real life, by creating the Torment Nexus!
Srsly why don’t you just hand big tech your paycheck for the next 60 years
I didnt say anything about detectors, which I do not use.
I am a non-native English speaker, and Im disabled.
Not sure what you're trying to say here.
Even if your first language isnt English, you still have to do the work of choosing/reading for a literature review.
Human technological progress should Not be reliant on how popular an article is Or the need for war to create a technological race through horror and pain
When GAI arrives it won't tell us.
Hopefully it will let some of us live.
Tools that promise to turn 20 hours of work into 4 hours of work are too tempting to ignore.
I do understand why someone who is under pressure to get more work done in less time would be attracted by a product that claims to do this.
I think they will be disappointed.
A different kind of teachable moment, surely.
Why would anyone even do this? Did they not actually read the lit (and I know this is a stereotype)? Do they not know why we have lit reviews in the first place? In either case, that person should not be trying to add to the literature?