Live Well With Me

A recent popular topic among professionals and scholars today is the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Is it ethical? Is it safe? Am I allowed to use it? So many questions and there is not enough data to answer them definitively. During a recent conference within my school, there were several topics that begged the discussion on AI. Unfortunately, due to the political influences of AI and technology, many people have stunted opinions on the use of AI, such as how individuals who use AI at all are just having the software do their work for them. However, this is a singular opinion that leaves out how beneficial AI can be.

Before I go any further, I believe it is important to note that – of course, you should never rely on AI to complete your school work, you should never plug a school prompt into the generator and copy/paste what it gives you. This is plagiarism, but also, there is no way of verifying it is true, effective, or valid. This is one ethical dilemma that many college students are facing. Moreover, most AI software collects data that people put into it, recycling information that it is given. Most generative AI programs are programmed to collect data and formulate it to fit future prompts. With this knowledge, be wary of using personally identifiable information and personal health information when using AI.

Now that we’ve covered the elephant in the room, it is important to understand that anything new to us can be scary. Remember when online banking started to become popular? Many people were skeptical about checking their bank information online because they felt it put them at risk of exposing their bank information. This also follows the same thoughts from when we started being able to make purchases online – which motivated the invention of secure sites to protect important information, such as banking information, debit/credit card information, and more.

AI, in general, can be beneficial for many reasons. It can help you organize your thoughts, you can brainstorm topics more easily, or it can help you create new habits, schedules, and routines. It can be used as a tool with many purposes. So, don’t be scared to use it or test it out. Just be careful with the information you feed into it, use your knowledge of online safety, and avoid using information of which you are unsure.

This post was inspired by the American Psychological Association’s recommendations on ethical guidance in health service psychology. Feel free to check it out here: https://www.apa.org/topics/artificial-intelligence-machine-learning/ethical-guidance-ai-professional-practice