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Artificial Intelligence : Evaluating AI

This guide provides an introduction to artificial intelligence including definitions, copyright issues, and generative AI tools.

Lateral Reading for AI Checklist

Lateral reading is leaving your initial source and consulting other sources to evaluate the initial sources' credibility. 

With traditional resources online this can be done by searching the source's publication, funding organization, author or title. None of this information is available when you assess an AI output. 

Here's how to fact-check something you got from an AI tool using lateral reading: 

❏ Break down an AI-generated response into individual claims.

❏ Open a new tab and look for supporting pieces of information. Here are some good sources to start with:

  • When searching for specific pieces of information: Google results or Wikipedia (a starting point and with caution)
  • When seeing if an article, book, or other resource exists: Google, Google Scholar, or WorldCat 
  • Some things to watch out for: Is the AI putting correct information in the wrong context, for example, writing in an essay that a professor works at Dartmouth when they really work at MIT? Is it attributing a fake article to an actual author, or vice versa?

❏ Next, think deeper about what assumptions are being made here

  • What did your prompt assume? Did you assume that AI will understand that you're asking about a particular demographic, geographic area, or time period? 
  • What did the AI assume? Did they give you news sources when you were seeking academic ones, or summarize an article at a middle school reading level rather than a college reading level? 
  • Who is knowledgeable about this topic? Would someone knowledgeable about this topic have a different perspective than what the AI is offering? What resource would you use to determine those perspectives?

❏ Finally, make a judgment call. 

  • Is the generated content true, misleading, and/or factually incorrect?
  • Can you re-prompt the AI to try and fix some of these assumptions and/or falsehoods?  
  • Did this evaluation process lead you to discover new sources or perspectives?
  • Remember, you’re repeating this process for each of the specifics generated from AI – go back to your list from the first step and keep going!

 

Text from  "Assess Content: Assessing AI-Based Tools for Accuracy" by the University of Maryland under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License Creative Commons

 

Accuracy

When working with AI, keep in mind the following best practices for evaluation:

  • Meticulously fact-check all of the information produced by generative AI, including verifying the source of all citations the AI uses to support its claims.
  • Critically evaluate all AI output for any possible biases that can skew the presented information. 
  • Avoid asking the AI tools to produce a list of sources on a specific topic as such prompts may result in the tools fabricating false citations. 
  • When available, consult the AI developers' notes to determine if the tool's information is up-to-date.
  • Always remember that generative AI tools are not search engines--they simply use large amounts of data to generate responses constructed to "make sense" 

Text from "Ethics & Privacy - Artificial Intelligence (Generative) Resources" by Georgetown University under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License Creative Commons

When AI Gets It Wrong

When AI Gets It Wrong: Addressing AI Hallucinations and Bias (MIT Management)

Currently a typical AI model isn't assessing whether the information it provides is correct. Its goal when it receives a prompt is to generate what it thinks is the most likely string of words to answer that prompt.  AI cannot interpret or distinguish between correct and incorrect answers. It’s up to you to make the distinction.  

It can give the wrong answer and omit information.  

Sometimes an AI will confidently return an incorrect answer. This could be a factual error or omitted information.  

It can make up false information. 

Sometimes, rather than simply being wrong, an AI will invent information that does not exist. This is known as “hallucination,” or, when the invented information is a citation, a “ghost citation.”   

It may not accurately produce its sources. 

If you ask an AI to cite its sources, the results it gives may not be where it is pulling this information.  Even an AI that provides footnotes may not provide the places information is from, just an assortment of webpages and articles that are roughly related to the topic of the prompt.  

It can interpret your prompts in an unexpected way. 

AI can accidentally ignore instructions or misinterpret a prompt.  A minor example of this is returning a 5-paragraph response when it was prompted to give a 3-paragraph response. If you’re not familiar with the topic you’re asking an AI-based tool about, you might not realize that it’s interpreting your prompt inaccurately. 

 

Text from "Artificial Intelligence: For Students" by Iona University  under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License Creative Commons

ROBOT

ROBOT is a method for evaluating sources of information in regards to AI. 
Reliability
  • How reliable is the information available about the AI technology?
  • If it’s not produced by the party responsible for the AI, what are the author’s credentials? Bias?
  • If it is produced by the party responsible for the AI, how much information are they making available? 
    • Is information only partially available due to trade secrets?
    • How biased is they information that they produce?
Objective
  • What is the goal or objective of the use of AI?
  • What is the goal of sharing information about it?
    • To inform?
    • To convince?
    • To find financial support?
Bias
  • What could create bias in the AI technology?
  • Are there ethical issues associated with this?
  • Are bias or ethical issues acknowledged?
    • By the source of information?
    • By the party responsible for the AI?
    • By its users?
Owner
  • Who is the owner or developer of the AI technology?
  • Who is responsible for it?
    • Is it a private company?
    • The government?
    • A think tank or research group?
  • Who has access to it?
  • Who can use it?
Type
  • Which subtype of AI is it?
  • Is the technology theoretical or applied?
  • What kind of information system does it rely on?
  • Does it rely on human intervention? 

Text adapted from "The Robot Test" by The LibrAIry under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License Creative Commons