The topic of intellectual property, copyright, and privacy always seems to be a very tricky matter to me. Even though we all know the importance of giving attribution and being given attribution by others when they are using or sharing my work, is it possible to check whenever you come across any resources online? What if the work you want to use has no CC license tagged? Can you make a presumption that this is a fair trade or public domain work and reuse it as you wish?
When I was discussing this topic with the undergrads I was teaching last semester, these questions popped up to me. So, if only the judge decided whether the work falls into the category of fair trade, what could individuals do? Also, even if you shared some work under a specific license you approved, how can you check if somebody gave you the attribution as they were supposed to? Is there a way to track them?
As technologies evolve beyond our imagination, the issue of giving credit to one's ownership seems to get into even more blurry areas. Let's say you used some information you acquired from interacting with ChatGPT. Is it enough to give credit to just ChatGPT? Do you know where the information was coming from? Because this is such a tricky matter and will become trickier, it is essential to guide students in thinking about this issue—where we can make the blurry line clearer and what we can do at the very least. It will be good practice to start giving credit from a young age and to begin thinking about the importance of protecting copyrights and ownership.
This is so true! You would think that technology evolving would give us more tools to track this type of stuff, but it really has made it harder. Your comments about ChatGPT are so true. It really does muddy the water! So many students are using ChatGPT to do everything now. Last semester we got to play around with it a lot in a class I took from Dr. Jeong. It is crazy what you can pull out of ChatGPT and not even know where the information is coming from!
ReplyDeleteHi Lotta. Thank you for your comment! I just asked ChatGPT about the citation issue, and it says it does not have ability to cite specific sources as it generates response based on knowledge and patterns derived from diverse datasets.
DeleteInteresting point about ChatGPT! The waters seemed muddy to begin with, but adding AI makes it even more complicated. I agree that teaching about intellectual property should be started early on.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your comment, Kaley. Yes, as students are exposed early to all sorts of GenAI tools, intellectual property should be emphasized from a young age.
DeleteWhat I appreciate about this post, Idam, is that it highlights how rapidly evolving technologies will likely prevent us from ever developing completely foolproof approaches to navigating copyright issues. For that reason, I completely agree with you that, when working with students, it's important to focus on the underlying principles that guide our use of others' materials, rather than trying to teach hard and fast rules. Basically, we want to help students work with other people's content in ways that are thoughtful, respectful, and intentional--this is, of course, easier said than done!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment, William! Your comment helped me think more from the students' point of view. Students will be getting more and more creative with their skills and familiarity with AI tools. It will be important to give them a safe space and the ability to work on content while abiding by the rules and respecting others' work!
DeleteGood reflection on the topic, Idam! I recently explored the intersection of AI and copyright for a project in another course. Currently, two main issues are prominent in this area: the copyright of AI-generated works and the use of copyrighted materials in AI training. For the latter, some argue it falls under fair use under current legislation. Lawsuits and the rapid evolution of AI technologies are pushing the law to evolve, too. The U.S. Copyright Office has a dedicated AI initiative webpage (https://www.copyright.gov/ai/) where they release the latest updates to the general public. As educators in this field, it is important for us to stay updated on the latest policies. Regardless of how the rules and regulations evolve, I agree that educating learners about the ethical use of AI and intellectual property should start early on.
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