AI is a reality in our current moment, and we’re still figuring out what it means for learning and creative/intellectual work. In this class, I encourage you to—within the limits of your comfort—experiment with AI as a tool to help you study, think through ideas, and improve your writing. It can also be genuinely useful for planning and breaking tasks into smaller steps.

At the same time: AI tools can’t take the place of your own insights, and I don’t want them to reduce your opportunities to make creative critical connections as you hone your analytic skills.

Guidelines

1. Use AI as a tool, not a replacement for your own work and thinking. Start first with your own ideas & questions — don’t outsource that primary thinking to AI.
2. Pay attention to privacy/data: know what a tool collects, and only use tools you’re comfortable with.
3. Don’t plagiarize. You must properly cite your sources and give credit where credit is due, including acknowledging when and how you used AI in your process.
4. Stay alert to bias and errors. AI can often “hallucinate” things as it tries to meet your requests. Fact-check as you go, and locate/consult the relevant primary and secondary sources rather than relying on AI summaries.

Please note that each professor at Middlebury will have their own approach to and rules about AI that you’ll need to follow for any given class.