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A Student's Guide to Writing with ChatGPT

(openai.com)
323 points timbilt | 6 comments | 13 Nov 24 19:26 UTC | HN request time: 0.209s | source | bottom
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youoy ◴[13 Nov 24 21:04 UTC] No.42129990[source]▶
I actually think that this is the most important part of the article:

> Similarly, it’s important to be open about how you use ChatGPT. The simplest way to do this is to generate shareable links and include them in your bibliography . By proactively giving your professors a way to audit your use of AI, you signal your commitment to academic integrity and demonstrate that you’re using it not as a shortcut to avoid doing the work, but as a tool to support your learning.

Would it be a viable solution for teachers to ask everyone to do this? Like a mandatory part of the homework? And grade it? Just a random thought...

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dr_dshiv ◴[13 Nov 24 21:28 UTC] No.42130190[source]▶
I’ve seen a lot of places that require students to reference their ChatGPT use — and I think it is wrong headed. Because it is not a source to cite!

But, sharing links for helping teachers understand your prompting is great

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JadeNB ◴[13 Nov 24 22:19 UTC] No.42130778[source]▶
> I’ve seen a lot of places that require students to reference their ChatGPT use — and I think it is wrong headed. Because it is not a source to cite!

Why is it not a source? I think that it is not if "source" means "repository of truth," but I don't think that's the only valid meaning of "source."

For example, if I were reporting on propaganda, then I think that I could cite actual propaganda as a source, even though it is not a repository of truth. Now maybe that doesn't count because the propaganda is serving as a true record of untrue statements, but couldn't I also cite a source for a fictional story, that is untrue but that I used as inspiration? In the same way, it seems to me that I could cite ChatGPT as a source that helped me to shape and formulate my thoughts, even if it did not tell me any facts, or at least if I independently checked the 'facts' that it asserted.

That's "the devil's I," by the way; I am long past writing school essays. Although, of course, proper attribution is appropriate long past school days, and, indeed, as an academic researcher, I do try my best to attribute people who helped me to come up with an idea, even if the idea itself is nominally mine.

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1. dr_dshiv ◴[13 Nov 24 23:02 UTC] No.42131185[source]▶
Because otherwise it becomes convoluted. It is acceptable to cite and source published material. Having to account for the source of one’s ideas, however, citing friends and influences - it shouldn’t be a moral requirement, just imagine!
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2. JadeNB ◴[13 Nov 24 23:38 UTC] No.42131444[source]▶
> Because otherwise it becomes convoluted. It is acceptable to cite and source published material. Having to account for the source of one’s ideas, however, citing friends and influences - it shouldn’t be a moral requirement, just imagine!

But there is, I think, a big gap between "it is not a source to cite" from your original post, and "it shouldn't be a moral requirement" in this one. I think that, while not every utterance should be annotated with references to every person or resource that contributed to it, there is a lot of room particularly in academic discourse for acknowledging informal contributions just as much as formal ones.

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3. cfmcdonald ◴[14 Nov 24 03:35 UTC] No.42132915[source]▶
The point of citing sources is so that the reader can retrace the evidential basis on which the writer's claims rest. A citation to "Chat GPT" doesn't help with this at all. Saying "Chat GPT helped me write this" is more like an acknowledgment than a citation.
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4. Fomite ◴[14 Nov 24 04:28 UTC] No.42133170{3}[source]▶
Again, it is standard practice to cite things like (personal communication) or (Person, unpublished) to document where a fact is coming from, even if it cannot be retraced (which also comes up when publishing talks whose recordings or transcripts are not available).
5. dr_dshiv ◴[14 Nov 24 11:05 UTC] No.42135058{3}[source]▶
This is my point and better stated. I always acknowledge ChatGPT in my writing and never cite it.
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6. JadeNB ◴[14 Nov 24 14:20 UTC] No.42136328{4}[source]▶
> I always acknowledge ChatGPT in my writing and never cite it.

These are not the uses with which I am familiar—as Fomite says in a sibling comment, I am used to referring to citing personal communications; but, if you are using "cite" to mean only "produce as a reproducible testament to truth," and "source" only as "something that reproducibly demonstrates truth," which is a distinction whose value I can acknowledge making even if it's not the one I am used to, then your argument makes more sense to me.