Latest / Azadeh and Guy on AI / Navigating AI in Graduate School
Transcript
- 0:00SPEAKER_00: Hi and welcome to Azadeh on AI and this is our,
- 0:05SPEAKER_00: according to our counting, this is our sixth episode.
- 0:09SPEAKER_00: Episode five we actually had a problem with the audio so we're going to redo that episode.
- 0:15SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure Jeremy will come by and talk us through his work
- 0:20SPEAKER_00: because it is fascinating and important work.
- 0:23SPEAKER_00: And so that being said we're moving to the main topic today and today we're going to talk about
- 0:29SPEAKER_01: uh three advice that we can give to graduate students so we're gonna alternate
- 0:34SPEAKER_00: and we're gonna give a piece of advice if you're a graduate student
- 0:37SPEAKER_00: and you're thinking about where does AI fit into my world maybe the first piece
- 0:42SPEAKER_00: of advice that I would give it doesn't count I get my three after that
- 0:46SPEAKER_00: but do not ignore AI give it serious consideration and then if you choose not
- 0:53SPEAKER_00: to use it for a variety of reasons absolutely but do not ignore it it does exist in
- 0:57SPEAKER_00: the world
- 0:58SPEAKER_00: So what's your first one?
- 1:00SPEAKER_00: As a graduate student who's using AI,
- 1:02SPEAKER_00: who's studying in AI in multiple ways,
- 1:05SPEAKER_00: if there's a graduate student just coming into graduate school this fall,
- 1:10SPEAKER_00: what would you say?
- 1:11SPEAKER_01: So I would start with a very short introduction.
- 1:15SPEAKER_01: My major is Innovative Learning Technologies and Generative AI emerged
- 1:19SPEAKER_01: as I started my PhD program.
- 1:22SPEAKER_01: So it's been with me all of these years.
- 1:25SPEAKER_01: The first advice that I can give to graduate students is that maybe they don't want
- 1:32SPEAKER_01: to expect AI to give them a kind of publishable work.
- 1:37SPEAKER_01: I mean, if I want to say it in a short form,
- 1:40SPEAKER_01: you need to treat AI as a research partner, not as an author.
- 1:45SPEAKER_01: and the biggest shift for me was that AI is not
- 1:49SPEAKER_01: the author it's my research partner I use it to brainstorm ideas
- 1:54SPEAKER_01: to evaluate my thinking to organize literature or sometimes to critique arguments
- 2:03SPEAKER_01: but all of those interpretations final decisions and conclusions are should be mine
- 2:11SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
- 2:12SPEAKER_00: And that's a responsibility.
- 2:14SPEAKER_00: As an author,
- 2:16SPEAKER_00: as the person who's taking charge,
- 2:18SPEAKER_00: you have got to make sure that it is first and foremost yours so AI is here to help.
- 2:23SPEAKER_01: And I think it hugely impacts your confidence if you just copy and paste what you get from AI.
- 2:31SPEAKER_01: Because you may have a ready-made presentation which looks nice,
- 2:35SPEAKER_01: but when you are going to present it yourself in a conference or in front
- 2:39SPEAKER_01: of your colleagues,
- 2:40SPEAKER_01: then you may not feel confident enough and you may feel that it's not mine,
- 2:46SPEAKER_01: it doesn't belong to me.
- 2:48SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's a certain alienation when you see that and you're like, wait, what?
- 2:53SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 2:53SPEAKER_01: All right.
- 2:56SPEAKER_00: My first one,
- 2:58SPEAKER_00: and we're working on our policy for graduate student,
- 3:01SPEAKER_00: my first one in that as well is talk to your advisor.
- 3:05SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
- 3:06SPEAKER_00: That is,
- 3:07SPEAKER_00: get a sense of what your advisor and every instructor,
- 3:10SPEAKER_00: by the way,
- 3:11SPEAKER_00: in any class you are,
- 3:13SPEAKER_00: if there isn't an official AI policy or they don't start a conversation about AI,
- 3:18SPEAKER_00: start that conversation.
- 3:20SPEAKER_00: and ask what is allowed,
- 3:22SPEAKER_00: what is not.
- 3:23SPEAKER_00: If you are experienced with AI
- 3:25SPEAKER_00: or if you are using AI in your workflow,
- 3:28SPEAKER_00: be honest about it
- 3:29SPEAKER_00: and tell them how you're using it
- 3:31SPEAKER_00: so you know what the boundaries are.
- 3:34SPEAKER_01: Can I ask a question, Guy?
- 3:36SPEAKER_01: And it could be very different
- 3:38SPEAKER_01: for graduate students
- 3:39SPEAKER_01: but sometimes
- 3:40SPEAKER_01: it's a kind of hard conversation.
- 3:43SPEAKER_01: People are hesitant
- 3:44SPEAKER_01: when they want to ask questions
- 3:47SPEAKER_01: about AI
- 3:47SPEAKER_01: and sometimes they feel that
- 3:49SPEAKER_01: advisor may think they are lazy they don't want to do the work so how
- 3:55SPEAKER_01: so what is your suggestion how do we need to start that conversation so
- 4:00SPEAKER_00: I have two things to say one is this is why I'm working with faculty to make sure
- 4:05SPEAKER_00: that we have a structured way to do that so a student doesn't have to start
- 4:09SPEAKER_00: the conversation because the right way to do it is for faculty
- 4:13SPEAKER_00: to bring it up however if you are a student and you're thinking about using AI
- 4:17SPEAKER_00: or you're using AI in your workflow every day because as more generation
- 4:22SPEAKER_00: of graduate students come
- 4:24SPEAKER_00: and they have practices that they bring from the workplace from their in that time
- 4:29SPEAKER_00: that they're working on their own or
- 4:31SPEAKER_00: from undergraduate I mean eventually we'll have ones that have already used it
- 4:36SPEAKER_00: in high school so if nobody else initiates you need to understand the boundaries
- 4:42SPEAKER_00: because you don't want to be in that conversation
- 4:44SPEAKER_00: where somebody says this is not your work have you used AI and you're like
- 4:50SPEAKER_00: yes i have used ai i always use ai you don't want to have that conversation after
- 4:56SPEAKER_00: the fact you want to have that conversation early you want to be gentle and
- 5:01SPEAKER_00: so what you're saying is it feels dangerous to do that yeah and i agree
- 5:06SPEAKER_00: that it is it's more dangerous to get caught caught is the wrong word
- 5:11SPEAKER_00: the consequences are yes for somebody to challenge what you've been doing and to say
- 5:16SPEAKER_00: in my mind anything that you've done from the beginning is completely null
- 5:20SPEAKER_00: and void you don't want that either yeah so you need to gently ask what is
- 5:27SPEAKER_00: the policy about ai how do you feel you may actually want
- 5:31SPEAKER_00: to ask you know do you use ai in what ways do you use ai and start
- 5:37SPEAKER_00: the conversation carefully yeah
- 5:40SPEAKER_00: Engage the response.
- 5:41SPEAKER_00: You don't want to overshare.
- 5:43SPEAKER_00: And what I mean is not necessarily that you want to hide your AI practice,
- 5:49SPEAKER_00: but if you're the student who initiated that conversation and you're getting
- 5:53SPEAKER_00: a very negative response, you know that
- 5:57SPEAKER_00: The boundaries are now clear.
- 5:58SPEAKER_00: You're not supposed to use anything and you probably shouldn't, right?
- 6:03SPEAKER_00: At least in any way that is directly connected.
- 6:06SPEAKER_00: And this is what people care about.
- 6:07SPEAKER_00: They care about analysis, especially qualitative analysis, and they care about the writing.
- 6:12SPEAKER_00: you can use it in other ways you can use it to smooth out the writing from
- 6:15SPEAKER_00: a grammar perspective nobody challenges that you can use it and I'll talk
- 6:21SPEAKER_00: a little bit about this but there are lots of small things you can do that aren't in
- 6:26SPEAKER_00: that realm of you're being dishonest
- 6:31SPEAKER_00: And those are the places you definitely want to use it.
- 6:34SPEAKER_00: But anything that has to do with writing or analysis,
- 6:38SPEAKER_00: you want to make sure that you and your advisor or any instructor have
- 6:43SPEAKER_00: a clear understanding of the boundaries.
- 6:44SPEAKER_00: And then you make your choices, but you want to understand where you stand.
- 6:49SPEAKER_01: So maybe your first advice is for the faculty members.
- 6:53SPEAKER_01: I mean, they need to develop an AI policy and then...
- 6:57SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
- 6:58SPEAKER_00: But you as a student, you don't get to choose that.
- 7:01SPEAKER_00: So if there isn't one, so the first thing is to ask, can you direct me to what the AI policy is?
- 7:08SPEAKER_00: And
- 7:09SPEAKER_00: then if you don't get a response or if you say we don't have a policy then you start
- 7:15SPEAKER_00: a careful conversation and again you're asking okay so what are
- 7:18SPEAKER_00: the boundaries what is acceptable and not acceptable if you have ways to use it
- 7:24SPEAKER_00: and you're willing to share share if you feel a lot
- 7:26SPEAKER_00: of negativity just you don't have to kind of dig yourself a hole yeah yeah
- 7:32SPEAKER_00: With your advisor,
- 7:33SPEAKER_00: if you see,
- 7:34SPEAKER_00: because I know some of my colleagues are very negative about AI and you're like,
- 7:38SPEAKER_00: okay, I understand where I stand now.
- 7:40SPEAKER_00: And then you have choices.
- 7:42SPEAKER_00: One of the choices is maybe,
- 7:44SPEAKER_00: especially if you're interested in the way AI interacts,
- 7:47SPEAKER_00: maybe you need to work with somebody else.
- 7:49SPEAKER_00: That is a choice that you can make as a graduate student in most places.
- 7:53SPEAKER_00: And the second one is obviously listen.
- 7:57SPEAKER_00: because that's going to have an impact.
- 7:58SPEAKER_00: If somebody is having a negative reaction when you just mentioned AI,
- 8:03SPEAKER_00: imagine if they found out that you were using AI.
- 8:06SPEAKER_00: That's not going to be good for you.
- 8:08SPEAKER_00: So the way to do that is to have conversations and to build that into
- 8:12SPEAKER_00: the conversation in a way that's productive.
- 8:17SPEAKER_00: And again, enter the conversation, carefully practice with AI having that conversation.
- 8:24SPEAKER_00: and tell AI to be a supportive faculty member or
- 8:28SPEAKER_00: a faculty member who's really resistant to AI you can try that
- 8:33SPEAKER_00: and see how it plays out and find a few paths to be careful and protect yourself
- 8:38SPEAKER_00: because you don't want a faculty member to think oh this is a person who just wants
- 8:43SPEAKER_00: to find an easy path and use AI for everything and not do any work you don't want
- 8:48SPEAKER_00: that because if
- 8:49SPEAKER_00: If that's what you're going to do, don't go to graduate school.
- 8:52SPEAKER_00: Just talk to ChatGPT a lot.
- 8:54SPEAKER_00: It's the same thing.
- 8:55SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 8:57SPEAKER_00: And you don't have to pay or you pay $20 a month.
- 9:00SPEAKER_00: So that's what I would be careful about.
- 9:03SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 9:04SPEAKER_00: But you do want to have that conversation.
- 9:07SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 9:07SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 9:08SPEAKER_01: That's very good.
- 9:08SPEAKER_01: All right.
- 9:09SPEAKER_00: Your second piece of advice.
- 9:11SPEAKER_01: Let me see.
- 9:14SPEAKER_01: The second advice is that AI response is as good as the question that you are asking from AI.
- 9:23SPEAKER_01: For example,
- 9:24SPEAKER_01: just don't ask explain regression give AI some context explain the problem
- 9:30SPEAKER_01: and regarding my experience the more specific you are the better response you get
- 9:36SPEAKER_01: from AI and the other thing is
- 9:39SPEAKER_01: that AI I think AI has made me think more I mean clearer sometimes I go through
- 9:45SPEAKER_01: the AI response
- 9:47SPEAKER_01: And just by looking at the response,
- 9:49SPEAKER_01: I figure out that, oh, this is the part that I don't understand at all.
- 9:53SPEAKER_01: So I need to go back,
- 9:54SPEAKER_01: study more,
- 9:55SPEAKER_01: analyze it,
- 9:56SPEAKER_01: and then go back to AI and ask a more specific question or a clearer question.
- 10:03SPEAKER_01: AI has helped me in that regard a lot, yeah.
- 10:07SPEAKER_00: And do you upload documents into it?
- 10:10SPEAKER_00: I do.
- 10:10SPEAKER_00: If there's an output or a chapter or something like that?
- 10:14SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I do that.
- 10:15SPEAKER_01: It helps a lot in terms of the context.
- 10:18SPEAKER_01: And I think I talked about it once, even for answering IRB questions.
- 10:25SPEAKER_01: So IRB forms are very long and many of those sections are interconnected.
- 10:32SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you forget the details.
- 10:35SPEAKER_01: So in that case,
- 10:36SPEAKER_01: it helps a lot if you ask AI to help you with formulating the responses or
- 10:43SPEAKER_01: for showing you what are the conflicts in different parts of that.
- 10:50SPEAKER_00: And so that's a way to maximize what you get, the quality.
- 10:55SPEAKER_00: So what you're saying is the quality of the response is connected
- 10:58SPEAKER_00: to how much context and how much detail you give AI.
- 11:02SPEAKER_01: Yep, yep.
- 11:04SPEAKER_00: All right.
- 11:04SPEAKER_00: My second one is to play.
- 11:07SPEAKER_00: To play lots.
- 11:09SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is use AI as much as you can for things that are not high stakes.
- 11:18SPEAKER_00: So, for example, I had to do something today.
- 11:22SPEAKER_00: I had to add a few things to my resume.
- 11:25SPEAKER_01: Okay.
- 11:26SPEAKER_00: So usually it's like, okay,
- 11:29SPEAKER_00: find the conference presentation and then copy from the program into the conference,
- 11:36SPEAKER_00: into my CV and then make sure all the details are right and blah, blah, blah.
- 11:41SPEAKER_00: And the copy and paste doesn't work.
- 11:43SPEAKER_01: Oh my God.
- 11:44SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 11:45SPEAKER_00: Yes.
- 11:45SPEAKER_00: So what I did today is I said, here's the program.
- 11:50SPEAKER_00: Okay.
- 11:51SPEAKER_00: You know, on a whim.
- 11:52SPEAKER_00: So while I'm trying to do this, I'm like, wait, before I do this, can AI do this well?
- 11:58SPEAKER_00: And I said, here's the program.
- 12:00SPEAKER_00: Can you find all the presentations I made and quote them or create an APA style citation?
- 12:09SPEAKER_00: and he did it beautifully well and he said the one thing i'm missing is the date
- 12:13SPEAKER_00: because when you do posters you need the exact date and he said what was the date
- 12:18SPEAKER_00: or do you want me to go look for it and i went no i know the date here's the date
- 12:23SPEAKER_00: and it generated and i cut the whole thing and pasted it straight
- 12:27SPEAKER_00: and it saved me probably half an hour of work and probably a few mistakes i had
- 12:31SPEAKER_00: to verify that it's correct yeah yeah it's not making things on yes but
- 12:37SPEAKER_00: it was so much faster and that's what i mean
- 12:39SPEAKER_00: by play is every time you do something especially as you said something that is like
- 12:43SPEAKER_00: an irb or something that is annoying and that's not why you're
- 12:47SPEAKER_00: in graduate school yeah right this is a thing you have to do to get to
- 12:51SPEAKER_00: the real thing yeah that's true that's when you play make something make it do
- 12:57SPEAKER_00: the things you don't like doing make it do some things you can't do
- 13:02SPEAKER_00: and you're like maybe it can do that for me yeah
- 13:05SPEAKER_00: those are the things that you want to try and in that mix also try different kinds
- 13:10SPEAKER_00: of AIs until you find one that you prefer the models change all the time
- 13:16SPEAKER_00: so some people say just choose one model and focus on
- 13:19SPEAKER_00: that I have all three top models three four top models and I alternate between them
- 13:27SPEAKER_00: because sometimes some of them do something really well
- 13:30SPEAKER_00: and other things not they're also connected in different way to my documents
- 13:34SPEAKER_00: I do have my favorite AI I mean I've talked about this before
- 13:38SPEAKER_00: but cloud is my favorite AI everything that I own that isn't part of
- 13:42SPEAKER_00: the university is connected to my cloud it's not part of
- 13:46SPEAKER_00: the institution therefore I can't connect it to everything inside
- 13:50SPEAKER_00: the university it's my loss because it complicates my life
- 13:54SPEAKER_00: but I understand why there's data security there's privacy there's all
- 13:58SPEAKER_00: of these concerns I'm fine with it
- 14:01SPEAKER_00: it does do everything I want as good as if not better than other models despite
- 14:07SPEAKER_00: the fact that I do like open AI and its different models and those have worked
- 14:12SPEAKER_00: for me rather well and those are inside the institution and so they function
- 14:17SPEAKER_00: a little bit different for me I've been using Gemini in the last few months
- 14:21SPEAKER_00: that has been less fantastic but
- 14:25SPEAKER_00: it's still good the last piece about playing a lot is if you can afford it
- 14:30SPEAKER_00: and I know graduate students take the vow of poverty so that's hard but
- 14:38SPEAKER_00: But I would argue that paying for one kind of AI or another gives you just
- 14:45SPEAKER_00: a completely different level of quality.
- 14:48SPEAKER_00: And as the field moves forward,
- 14:51SPEAKER_00: a paid subscription or API or whatever it is
- 14:54SPEAKER_00: that you're using has tremendous benefits, consistency and a better memory.
- 15:02SPEAKER_00: And that's something that I think gives dividends in the long run.
- 15:07SPEAKER_00: you obviously don't want to pay for all of them and $200 or more or
- 15:12SPEAKER_00: an expensive API is probably out of the range for most graduate students so don't do
- 15:17SPEAKER_00: that but a paid version does give you a better quality so choose one
- 15:21SPEAKER_00: if it doesn't work for you stop paying pickups another thing
- 15:29SPEAKER_01: your next one my third advice would be use AI for doing repetitive tasks for you so
- 15:36SPEAKER_01: as all of us know graduate school is full of repetitive tasks you need
- 15:41SPEAKER_01: to I don't know formatting you need to format references you need
- 15:46SPEAKER_01: to check APS style you need sometimes to organize your writing sometimes you need
- 15:51SPEAKER_01: a second eye to check your writing to make sure that everything is correct
- 15:55SPEAKER_01: so for those tasks which are all of them are important but they are time consuming
- 16:01SPEAKER_01: and sometimes you are too tired you don't want to spend I mean that much time
- 16:05SPEAKER_01: on such kind of a task you can use AI to do that for you and
- 16:10SPEAKER_01: as Guy said you always need to verify before you accept it
- 16:14SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that goes back to your first point, right?
- 16:18SPEAKER_00: You are the author.
- 16:20SPEAKER_00: You sign your name the minute that you said, this is mine.
- 16:24SPEAKER_00: You need to be responsible for every comma, every period, every number.
- 16:30SPEAKER_00: So check them.
- 16:31SPEAKER_00: But it does save you a tremendous amount of time when you are the editor and not
- 16:36SPEAKER_00: the person who wrote it.
- 16:36SPEAKER_00: You're also much more likely to catch mistakes.
- 16:40SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's true.
- 16:41SPEAKER_00: all right my third one in this what is becoming a very short not very short
- 16:48SPEAKER_00: but short episode yeah which is good yeah we need
- 16:50SPEAKER_00: to be short often i talk too long i measured i talked too much good idea
- 16:56SPEAKER_00: so okay all right um
- 17:00SPEAKER_00: And I just went yesterday to XAI in Omaha, Omaha XAI, Omaha by AI.
- 17:06SPEAKER_00: This is what they called it.
- 17:08SPEAKER_00: And this is my advice.
- 17:10SPEAKER_00: Go to professional development.
- 17:12SPEAKER_00: Go to any opportunity for something, especially if it's free or if it's reasonably priced.
- 17:18SPEAKER_00: Go to that professional development.
- 17:19SPEAKER_00: As a graduate student,
- 17:20SPEAKER_00: you have a whole university that has more events than anybody can go to,
- 17:24SPEAKER_00: more talks than anybody can go to.
- 17:26SPEAKER_00: Choose the AI one and go.
- 17:29SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you're like, yeah, I know all of this.
- 17:31SPEAKER_00: They're talking about Notebook LM again.
- 17:35SPEAKER_00: If I hear another talk about Notebook LM, I'm going to blow up.
- 17:38SPEAKER_00: But I understand why they're talking about it.
- 17:41SPEAKER_00: It's a great product.
- 17:42SPEAKER_00: And if you've never used AI, this is one of the most useful ways you can start.
- 17:47SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 17:48SPEAKER_00: And so I understand why they're talking about it.
- 17:50SPEAKER_00: But if there's an opportunity, go.
- 17:52SPEAKER_00: If there's an opportunity when they're actually showing you things
- 17:56SPEAKER_00: and they're letting you practice, go.
- 18:00SPEAKER_00: Because it's the time on task.
- 18:03SPEAKER_00: It's the playing and trying.
- 18:06SPEAKER_00: And when there's somebody else that you can ask questions and say, hey, how do you solve this?
- 18:12SPEAKER_00: That is incredibly helpful.
- 18:14SPEAKER_00: So if they offer professional development, go.
- 18:16SPEAKER_00: I've been doing a lot of AI.
- 18:18SPEAKER_00: That's all I think about or 90% of what I think about in my professional life is AI.
- 18:25SPEAKER_00: And still I go to almost any opportunities that is out there.
- 18:29SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I leave after five minutes.
- 18:30SPEAKER_01: yeah
- 18:32SPEAKER_01: But I go.
- 18:33SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, yeah.
- 18:34SPEAKER_01: because I mean the titles are intriguing when you are talking about workshops and
- 18:39SPEAKER_01: then you start and you see okay I know 80% of all of it yes and so you learn also
- 18:44SPEAKER_00: which ones are good which ones are not but especially if you're still beginning
- 18:47SPEAKER_00: and especially if you're wondering about its place as a new graduate student
- 18:51SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 19:08SPEAKER_00: that's true the fact that the federal government in response
- 19:14SPEAKER_00: to grant applications has started saying that you're not allowed to submit things
- 19:18SPEAKER_00: that were produced by AI I'm not sure how they're judging it and there's a lot of
- 19:25SPEAKER_00: Very little clarity about that issue because we know that AI detectors are not very good.
- 19:32SPEAKER_00: And we know that they have too many false positives.
- 19:35SPEAKER_00: And so we're not sure how that would impact.
- 19:37SPEAKER_00: But again,
- 19:38SPEAKER_00: if you don't go to that meeting,
- 19:39SPEAKER_00: if you don't go to that workshop, you don't even hear that there might be a problem.
- 19:43SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's true.
- 19:44SPEAKER_00: So it's a way to think about the work we're doing.
- 19:47SPEAKER_00: So say your three kind of quickly, just to remind everybody.
- 19:52SPEAKER_01: Using AI for doing repetitive tasks.
- 19:56SPEAKER_01: using AI as a research partner and I think the quality of responses that you get
- 20:03SPEAKER_01: from AI depends on the questions that you ask and for me it's talk to your advisor
- 20:08SPEAKER_00: and any instructor you're working with play lots yeah
- 20:13SPEAKER_00: if you can afford it paid version even at the lowest level gives you a lot more and
- 20:18SPEAKER_00: the last one is go
- 20:19SPEAKER_00: to any professional development true yeah all right we'll see you next time on
- 20:24SPEAKER_01: as I did and guy on AI