5. Generative AI tools and task examples
Have you used generative AI tools for your studies?
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Prompting
To get useful responses from generative AI you need to use effective prompts. Your prompts should be specific:
- Provide the context and any background information
- Explain the task and the intended audience
- Include keywords and important details to help ensure the response covers these aspects. You can specify what you do and don’t want included
- Describe the output style and format you require.
You may have to refine your prompt and add more details to get to the outcome you want.
- Prompt examples from Open AI provides examples of prompts for different tasks.
- The Prompt Engineering Guide provides examples of techniques and tasks.
Examples of tasks generative AI tools can help you with
Remember to:
- consider copyright, privacy and academic integrity as you use the tools. You can upload your own notes but you should not upload study or course notes that are subject to copyright. (Check back to the previous chapter for more information.)
- keep a record of how you used the Generative AI tool and reference your use, if you are using the outputs for assessment or work.
Summarise content
- Upload or copy your notes to an AI tool and ask it to summarise and explain the content. Or use a tool with internet access (e.g. Copilot) and ask for summaries or explanations of your topic
- Ask the tool to change the tone and audience of the summary, and to produce different summary types, e.g. bullet points, images, a certain number of sentences.
Note: You can break your notes into smaller chunks if you go over the word limit.
Example prompts:
- Provide an overview of these notes in 5 bullet points outlining the main take aways.
- Summarise this page for someone with no background knowledge of the subject area and highlight key points.
Create review questions to prepare for an exam
- Upload or copy your notes and key topics to a text generation tool
- Ask the tool to generate different types of questions (multiple choice, true/false and open-ended) to check your knowledge of the topic.
Example prompts:
- Generate 5 multiple choice questions based on my notes.
- Generate 3 open-ended questions based on these key topics.
Organise information from unstructured data
Generative AI tools can create tables from text.
- Paste in your notes or use a tool with internet access to access information from webpages or reports
- Ask the tool to generate a table with this information and copy and paste or export it.
What is the population of each state in Australia in 2023 compared to 2001? Generate one table containing the 2023 and 2001 information and the percentage change:
Problem solving
Generative AI can help you brainstorm and solve problems. Ask the AI tool to suggest ideas.
If there is a topic or area that you find difficult, ask what you can do to improve your understanding or approach.
Example prompts:
- What specific steps can I take to improve my understanding of x?
- How can I improve my workflow to complete x?
- What are some ways to do x
- I’m currently doing y, what are some alternatives I could consider?
- What are the pros and cons of doing x?
Don’t forget to ask follow up questions and remember to use your critical thinking skills when using these tools.
Generative AI tool examples
There are many different generative AI tools. Be sure to check the usage policies or conditions of any tools before you start using them and review the terms regularly.
We will provide a few examples here. Go to Awesome Generative AI to find more. Most of these tools require you to register to use them, may have a cost and free plans may have limits.
Text generation tools
Gemini
Gemini is Google’s generative AI chatbot.
- Google warns that some of Gemini’s responses may be inaccurate so it is important to verify the information provided with other sources.
- Gemini allows voice input and you can export the responses to Google Docs or Gmail.
ChatGPT
Open AI’s ChatGPT is a language model and can generate text responses based on text questions you ask it.
- The ChatGPT blog explains that sometimes it will give “plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers”.
- Be careful to always check the information provided is accurate. ChatGPT does not have access to current information and cannot access the internet for searching.
Copilot
Microsoft’s Copilot is based on Open AI’s ChatGPT. You can access it via Copilot.
- Copilot can access the internet and read open webpages and documents.
- Make sure to always verify the sources. Check the tips in the previous chapter.
Perplexity AI
Perplexity AI is an AI powered search engine.
- The responses include in-text citations from web sources that you can follow up to learn more about a topic.
- It does not include any scholarly sources in responses. It is important to consult different types of academic sources for your assignments and not solely rely on information from general webpages.
Image generation tools
Image generators can help you:
- visualise concepts and ideas
- create scenery, images and characters
- experiment with designs.
Stable Diffusion
Stable Diffusion generates images from text descriptions. You do not need to create an account to use it.
Adobe Express
Adobe Express has a generative AI tool that allows you to generate images from a text description, apply effects and create designs.
Copilot Designer
You can use Copilot Designer to generate images based on your text. It is based on DALL-E.
DALL.E
OpenAI’s DALL.E 2 can generate images based on text input, edit existing images and create variations of existing images. Consider any privacy implications before you upload photos.
