Developing an ethical appreciation of the use of AI in Sociology

In a level 6 module on Sociology of the Self (online teaching session) Alice asked the students to outline the points they’d include in an introduction to an essay in response to a question that had been drafted (based on the theorist which has just been studied). Alice gave them about 15 minutes to do it, and to put it in a Padlet. She made it clear that this needed to be their own work because the group was going to use AI in stage 2 They wrote the introductions and Alice also did one, and gave them some very brief verbal feedback in the session. She then asked a few of them to put the same task (with a very basic prompt written by her) into the AI of their choice, and clearly mark them as AI entries on the Padlet. The group then compared them. The AI versions were all different to each other, but not very different, and had gone down a particular (mostly the same) track that was much more generic than the ones the students had written. It had some good ideas, but weirdly none of the AI entries produced an actual plan for the introduction – more a general list of points about the theorist (some of which weren’t really what he said).

Alice and the students discussed the challenges with this for a bit. They also discussed the importance of academic integrity, and linked it back to the assignment, and the University rules on what’s acceptable in AI terms.

After the session Alice commented on both the human and AI entries in the padlet so everyone could see what is positive and less good about each of the suggested structures.

This task was obviously a risk, because Alice didn’t know what the AI might produce (it could have been amazing, but it wasn’t, thankfully!).

Alice noted that she would certainly do it again.

Alice Wilby

Alice Wilby is University of Northampton's Pro-Vice Chancellor (Education and Student Experience)