ECN 429: Development Economics: Using AI

Ethical Questions:

• How can you use AI tools and maintain academic integrity (including avoiding plagiarism)? 
• Are AI tools impacting your education? Do they undermine your opportunity to learn or do they enhance your understanding?
• Are AI tools providing biased responses? 

Generative AI can be useful for:

• Developing ideas for a topic and identifying related concepts.
• Suggesting which library databases might be useful for finding sources, and which keywords or search strategies to try when searching those other databases. (You can also get human help with all of these tasks and more from the Clark Library!)
• Providing suggestions for improving writing. (You can also get human help with writing from the University's Writing Center!)
• Creating translations and asking questions in another language.
• Assisting with computer coding tasks. 

Limitations of current generative AI:

• Reliability: They can't assess the accuracy or logical consistency of the text they generate. They can make up facts and credible-looking sources, complete with citations to nonexistent books and articles. This phenomenon is often referred to as a "hallucination" or "confabulation."
• Bias: They perpetuate systemic biases. They are trained on datasets scraped from the Internet, which includes all the racist, sexist, ableist, and otherwise discriminatory language and images found there. 
• Legal Violations: They can infringe on copyright and intellectual property.

What can you do? 

• Develop your fact-checking skills so you can spot and correct errors that generative AI tools might make. Clark Library staff can help! 
• Verify citations and sources provided by generative AI tools. Not sure how? Ask your helpful Clark Library team!
• Develop depth of knowledge in your discipline or areas of interest so you can identify erroneous or biased information.
• Ask other human experts like your professors or teaching assistants.
• In general, learn more about the tech tools you use. Find out how they are trained, their purpose, and their limitations.

A strong AI prompt consists of clarity, specificity, and iterative refinement (Holbeck, 2025).

• Use open-ended prompts, e.g.,
  • What is the effect of ____ upon ____?
  • What is the evidence for and against [this assertion] being true?
  • What are the benefits and drawbacks of using AI in [activity]?
•  Layer prompts; add context and constraints, e.g.,
  • Explain ____ in the context of ____ and its impact on ____.

Holbeck, R. (2025, June 27). Helping students develop AI prompting skills for critical thinking. https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-with-technology-articles/helping-students-develop-ai-prompting-skills-for-critical-thinking/