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Generative AI

A guide to generative AI (artificial intelligence) and its impact on higher education.

Generative AIs

"Gemini is a conversational generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Google, based initially on the LaMDA family of large language models and later the PaLM LLM." Wikipedia

Gemini is available to all UMS users. Your data isn’t used to train or improve Gemini AI models!

"NotebookLM gives you a personalized AI collaborator that helps you do your best thinking. After uploading your documents, NotebookLM becomes an instant expert in those sources so you can read, take notes, and collaborate with it to refine and organize your ideas." Reference.

NotebookLM is available to all UMS users.

"ChatGPT (created by OpenAI) is a model which interacts in a conversational way. The dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer followup questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests." ChatGPT

"Claude is a next-generation AI assistant built by Anthropic and trained to be safe, accurate, and secure to help you do your best work."

"Perplexity is a free AI search engine designed to revolutionize the way you discover information. Ask any question, and it searches the internet to give you an accessible, conversational, and verifiable answer. Think of Perplexity as a research partner, always on the clock, saving you valuable time by providing the precise knowledge you need." Reference

"Transform your content into engaging AI‑generated audio discussions!" Google Illuminate

The next era of Gemini. Gemini 2.0 is our most capable AI model yet, built for the agentic era. Google DeepMind

What is artificial intelligence?

AI is the use of computers to model the behavioral aspects of human reasoning and learning.

Artificial Intelligence. (2018). In P. Lagasse, & Columbia University, The Columbia encyclopedia (8th ed.). Columbia University Press. Credo Reference

We already use Artificial Intelligence (AI) in small ways every day. For example, people unlock their phones with Face ID (facial recognition) or use tools like Grammarly and Gmail’s Smart Compose to get suggestions for what to type next.

AI is all around us—in our homes, cars, and phones. These systems learn about us, make decisions for us, and use our personal information in ways we may not notice. AI decides things like the best driving route, movie recommendations, interest rates, and even how security cameras in stores view us (Talagala, 2023).

AI is growing quickly. You may have heard of ChatGPT, a chatbot that can have conversations and write essays or creative texts. There’s also Lensa, an app that creates custom, detailed images from your photos.

What is a Large Language Model (LLM)?

A large language model is a type of AI trained to understand and create human language. It learns by analyzing lots of text, like books, articles, and websites, to find patterns and relationships. After training, it can generate new text that sounds similar to what it has learned.

Simply put, an LLM is a computer program that has been “taught” to understand and create language by studying a huge amount of text. The more it learns, the better it becomes at creating realistic and accurate language.

Some examples of large language models are GPT-3, BERT, T5, and XLNet. These models can generate text that sounds human, answer questions, translate languages, summarize, tell stories, or even write poems.

References

Talagala, N. (2023, January 11). Why 2023 will be the year of AI Education. Forbes. Retrieved January 11, 2023, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/nishatalagala/2023/01/10/why-2023-will-be-the-year-of-ai-education/?sh=442e02b62c38

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