AI in the Academic Setting

Generative AI tool usage and integration into academic and daily life is rapidly evolving.  This guide is frequently updated!  If you have any comments or suggestions, please contact us at tlrs@oxy.edu

Keep in mind: "...generative A.I., relies on a complex algorithm that analyzes the way humans put words together on the internet. It does not decide what is true and what is not."  When AI Chatbots Hallucinate—The New York Times. (2023, May 8). Archive.Ph. https://archive.ph/07rpm

What is Generative AI?

• Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that has been trained on massive amounts of data from which it "learns" patterns and structures.  It then can generate new data (text, images, etc.) when prompted by a user input.  It is a subset of deep learning combined with natural language processing.
• Cartography of generative AI will give you a comprehensive but digestable overview of generative AI and how it can and/or does connect to human activities.
• How generative AI works and how it fails
• ChatGPT (generative pre-trained transformer) and others like it are powered by Large Language Models(LLM's):
  •  A very gentle introduction to large language models without the hype 
  • Explained: Generative AI

Watch this short video to learn how large language models (LLM's) work.  LLM's make predictions based on their training data.  It's statistical- not magic!

Chatbot is a generic term for an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that uses natural language processing techniques and predictive text to respond to user generated prompts.  Chatbots have been created by Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Stanford University to name a few and have been around in some form since the mid 1960's.  Heard of ELIZA? 

ChatGPT is a chatbot created by OpenAI and was released to the general public as a "research preview" in late 2022.  It is a form of generative AI and is built on large language models (LLM's).  The usage and interest in ChatGPT and other LLM's has been an active subject in the scholarly and news media since then. 

GPT-4 was released in March 2023 and now powers ChatGPT Plus (paid version of ChatGPT) and is also integrated into Microsoft 365, the successor to Microsoft Office.  Microsoft calls its generative AI Copilot.  Amazon now has one for the workplace called Amazon Q.

In May 2024, OpenAI released GPT-4o which can accept audio and visual inputs as well as text and has access to the internet.  In September 2024, OpenAI released GPT-o1 that takes its time to "reason" through complex math and science problems.  It can be accessed via a $200 per month subscription to ChatGPT Pro.

GPT-5 was released in August of 2025 and is promoted as "thinking built in."

There are currently multiple companies using and producing GPT-4 class models.  In addition to their training data, they have various levels of connection to the internet to include up to date information in their output.  They can still "hallucinate" incorrect answers. GPT-5 was released in August 2025.   Also, note that both ChatGPT and Gemini can now (December 2024) see live video and interact with voice simultaneously, typically called "Live Mode."

The following is a table from January 27, 2025 listing and comparing these models (from an opinion piece* by Ethan Mollick):

*Ethan Mollick, One Useful Thing Substack, January 26, 2025