| If you’d rather listen to this newsletter, click here. We’re well into the academic year. Even those of you who had never met a computer before coming to university, know that computers and the digital world are an essential, very rich part of this new journey. Use it. Always try and learn more. As you get used to Excel or Powerpoint, watch youtube videos on how to use it better, how to find the functions, how to make your work better. You will come across AI more and more. This amazing new tool will be part of many newsletters from now on. To start, one basic idea: Use it to think more, not less. Let’s first understand exactly what it is. Artificial intelligence simply consists of the computer pulling together enormous amounts of information, more than you and I can even imagine, to find an answer to whatever query or “prompt” it is presented with. This is how an AI bot can beat a chess master. Interactive maps use AI to find the best route depending on traffic and weather patterns. Computer vision, another form of AI, can be used in self-driving cars and facial recognition. So-called “language processing” is getting better and better. AI has been trained on every possible form of human communication from songs and poems to academic treatises, novels and news articles. It has learnt to understand the language we humans speak and to respond as if it were another human being. This makes it very easy to use, and often fun. It can feel like a friend. Find an AI platform you like, perhaps ChatGPT, CoPilot or Gemini. They will all ask you for a “message” or “prompt”. This is simply another word for a question. You type in your question, and it responds in ordinary language, having found all the relevant information and put it together for you. One could say that Google will put a stack of books and articles on your desk for you to read, while AI has done the reading for you and written a summary – like the ones you now find at the top of the page of your Google search. The first skill you need in using this new tool is to write good prompts. The better your prompt, the better the result you’ll get. In asking questions, give context. If you’re looking for information on labour law, specify in which country – British and American laws are very different from South African. If you want to know how accounting standards should be applied, add “in an international company” or “in an NGO”. Be aware of your own biases. AI quickly learns what you like and will always give you more of that, as you have learnt in your music apps. Make a point of asking for information that may contradict your own views. Say, for example, your assignment is on labour law in South Africa. You believe that companies always discriminate against women. If you ask, “Give examples of discrimination against women,” you will get a long list supporting that view. If, however, you ask a more neutral question like, “Give examples of rules governing the employment of women,” the answer will cover a wider range. If you want it to write something for you, be clear and specific. Specify who it’s going to, what you want included, and the tone: “Write a formal email to my English professor asking if I can write the test another day. Say my mother is sick.” On a more personal note, you could ask it to write a poem. Once again, be specific: “Write me a poem about love that is both sad and hopeful.” If you have a favourite author, you may want to add “in the style of Maya Angelou.” You will be astonished at the results. Don’t simply accept the result. Perhaps that email is too formal. Say that in your next prompt: “I like the content, but the tone is too formal. Lighten up.” AI works with language exactly like we do. Talk to it. Or tweak it yourself. Your name appears at the bottom, not that of the machine who wrote the draft for you. Next week we’ll talk about AI and learning strategies. Stay tuned! Happy studying The GRAD team |
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| GRAD – your guide to university success is a partnership project of Ruda Landman, StudyTrust, Van Schaik Publishers and Capitec Bank |
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