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Artificial Intelligence (AI)

This guide will provide a general introduction to artificial intelligence (AI).

One important thing to keep in mind as you start your research into AI, is recognizing that generative AI technologies as we know them now are still relatively new. Although AI has been in the public eye and discussed and used in various fields such as business, finance, education, etc. the landscape is still constantly shifting and changing.

Because of this, you want to be sure you pay close attention to date of publication and/or date that a source was last updated for sources talking about AI to ensure you have the most up to date information on a topic that will continue to shift and evolve in the weeks, months and years to come.

Keywords

Beginning your research into artificial intelligence (AI) can be overwhelming so here are a few keywords that you can experiment with to find information on AI through library resources such as OneSearch and/or when looking for web resources:

  • ai
  • ai chat
  • ai chatbots
  • algorithms
  • algorithmic bias
  • artificial intelligence
  • autonomous systems
  • intelligent agents
  • intelligent systems
  • cognitive computing
  • computer vision
  • data mining
  • deep learning
  • machine learning
  • natural language processing
  • neural networks
  • predictive analytics

 

This is not a comprehensive list of keywords by any means but as you do keyword searching, be mindful of commonly used keywords and experiment by including them in your searches to see what sorts of results you get.

Limitations/challenges of using generative AI

Currency of information
  • Although AI tools have trainings/updates that are designed to improve data output, it is important to understand that this is not done in real-time. What this means is that the output of generative AI may be years behind on information it knows. Some paid versions of generative AI tools may be more up to date but this is why it is important to fact check any information you receive from an AI tool before using it in classwork.

 

Hallucinations
  • Hallucinations refers to made up information that is presented as if it were factual. These may be nonsensical and completely inaccurate. This occurs with the misinterpretation of the data that the AI tool is using to generate content. This can often happen when you ask AI to provide citations or academic sources. Because of this it is important to fact check any citations or sources generated by AI tools

 

Bias in AI
  • AI bias occurs due to human bias found in the dataset that the AI tool is learning from. Since AI generates new content based on the input it already has, bias in that input can lead to distorted outputs and potentially harmful outcomes.

 

Privacy
  • There are ongoing concerns and uncertainties around how AI tools collect personal data and how it's used afterwards. Although some AI tools have a privacy statement regarding how your personal data is used, it's good practice to not disclose more personal data than you have to.

 

Environmental impact
  • Whether we realize it or not, the development and use of AI tools can have a large environmental impact. In order to develop these tools, there is a tremendous consumption

Finding sources through OneSearch

Use OneSearch to find a variety of print and electronic resources in our collection along with other useful resources. After you search, use can use the filters to limit your results by source type, date, and more.

OnSearch search box image

For more options, use the Advanced Search

Databases

You can use the Library databases to find articles from periodicals (magazines, newspapers, and scholarly journals), as well as other types of sources. If you are off campus, you will be prompted for your OneLogin username and password before you get access to our databases.