Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI)

An overview of Generative AI concepts and vocabulary, relevant policies, and tools.

Tips for Users

These tools can also produce "hallucinations" or fabricated information, such as citations for articles that don't exist. Additionally, models that are trained on internet data will mimic the varying quality of information that you would find in a typical internet search results list. When you are evaluating the responses, you should closely review any sources/links, facts, or other information that the tool provides.
Most of these tools will store your conversations and prompts for use as training data, especially if you are using a free version. This puts certain categories of information at risk. Before entering or uploading information into any of these tools, consider if that information is private (e.g. competitive information), protected (e.g. FERPA or HIPPA), or copyrighted.
These tools can produce outputs that mirror the biases and stereotypes, exclusionary norms, hate speech, conspiracy theories, misinformation and disinformation that exist in their training data. Remaining aware of this can help you effectively evaluate the information provided.
There is an intense environmental impact in both the training of large models and the process of completing user interactions. This is compounded by the speed at which the industry has been innovating. While the environmental impacts of a rapidly expanding Generative AI industry continues to be explored, you can try to limit your impact as a user by remaining conscious of how much data you upload into Generative AI chatbots, limiting your use of multimedia generators (e.g. images and video), and not being too friendly in your chatbot interactions. Save your 'pleases' and 'thank yous' for the humans in your life!
It is important to be transparent about your use of Generative AI tools, in whatever context. The major citation formats have released guidance on how to cite Generative AI outputs (MLA, APA, and Chicago), but you should always check with your instructor or publication for specific guidance.

"Deep Research" Features

Many multi-purpose chatbots (e.g. ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.) are coming out with a "deep research" feature. It's important to note that the Deep Research function does not provide additional access to data that is not already available on the open web. It is a more sophisticated version of the main tool, with agentic functionality.  

AI Tools Used at Babson

Babson's Academic Technology & Innovation (ATI) Center maintains a list of AI tools that are currently being used by faculty, staff, and students at Babson. If you are a member of our community and would like to submit your favorite tool, email support@babson.edu.

ACCESS TO TOOLS: Many of the resources on this page are freely available to all internet users, but some may require a subscription. Resources accompanied by a star icon (Favorite ) are made available to some or all users at Babson.  

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Horn Library provides access to an impressive suite of resources to support academic research. Copyrighted materials extracted from the library’s licensed resources may not be uploaded into AI platforms unless explicitly permitted by licensing agreements. If you have questions about whether a specific use is acceptable, please contact research@babson.edu. 

AI-Powered Tools

Multi-Purpose Chatbots

These chatbots can be used for text generation, summarization, internet-searches, image generation, and more. Babson has an enterprise license for Microsoft Copilot, allowing all current Babson staff, students, and faculty to use the tool in a private, secure environment when logged in. 

Research Assistants

These tools are geared toward users conducting scholarly article research. Unlike the Writing Assistants listed above, which work very similarly, these tools will each have a unique purpose and set of functions. These will not be useful to those conducting research in highly specialized disciplines that require specific data sets, or generalized internet access. 

Multimedia Generators

Most multi-purpose chatbots have image generation functionality (e.g. Open AI's Dall-E is built into ChatGPT now), but there are some models and tools specifically dedicated to multimedia work.