It’s Time To Talk With Your Staff About Artificial Intelligence Tools
After a situation in my introductory class last spring where AI was used to create an opinion column, I decided I better talk about the use of Artificial Intelligence in my syllabus this year with all of my classes. The statement I chose to use was:
STATEMENT ON AI
– Syllabus for each journalism class
There are a variety of Artificial Intelligence tools available today. Many of those tools can be beneficial to learn new skills, solve problems or get ideas. Using AI tools to create work and pass it off as your own original work is prohibited. Doing such will likely cause you to fail the assignment and could result in you being removed from staff or not accepted onto staff. If you have any questions on using AI tools, please ask Mr. Manfull.
While I’m sure the statement will evolve over time, it is at least a message from the beginning to start the conversation. While students shouldn’t be pawning off work like stories or illustrations that have been built with AI, we shouldn’t be closing off the tools entirely to them as there is a lot of good that can come from using them from ways to use the tools in the writing process to ways to use them in the video storytelling process.
While we will continue to explore ways on this site AI can be used, such as sharing resources like JournalistsToolbox.ai, we would love to hear how you are using it in your newsroom and how you are talking to your staffers about it. Please reach out with any stories or successes you have so we can showcase them on this site to help others.
