Learning about Different Generative AI Programs

Generative AI Links to an external site.programs can write essays, answer questions, solve math problems, write poetry, write code, generate unique photos, songs, videos and works of art, and much more, and this is only the beginning. They can produce different results each time.  These programs are about as easy to use as a search engine, and in a lot of cases, the output is quite good. But as you'll see the results are also sometimes incomplete, biased, inaccurate, or otherwise...off.a haiku written by AI about the joy of teaching at ELAC

Every instructor will have to make their own decisions about the use or prohibition of generative AI in their particular class and discipline, but the first step is to be aware of what these technologies can do and learn about their limitations as well. 

If you haven't tried out any of these technologies yet, now is the time to start! A great way to test the waters is to enter one of your assignments or questions into the prompt field. After it has generated an answer, enter the same prompt again...that way, you can see the variability in responses. Some of these programs are still free to use, and most require you to create an account. 

The most commonly used today are:

 

Image: Prompt and result from Google Gemini.