Disclaimer: AI is a fast-changing landscape so advice can go out of date quickly. The staff of the Quincentenary Library do not endorse or support any of the AI tools mentioned within this guide.
Always check your Faculty/Departmental AI policy (some differ from the University policy).
It may be difficult to know where to start with AI, which tools to use, and what to be aware of when using AI. This page will provide you with more clarity, focusing on generative AI, and using AI tools to produce content. AI tools should only be used in conjunction with other forms of research tools, not as a replacement. The key thing with AI, as with all internet tools and sources, is critical thinking. For more information on this subject, read through the warnings in the box below first. Then go to our critical reading page.
Students are permitted to make appropriate use of GenAI tools to support their personal study, research and formative work. Appropriate use is better defined locally by Department, Faculty, or College depending on the context and you should always check with a member of staff to be sure you know how you are able to use these tools for your education. The use of any unacknowledged content generated by artificial intelligence within a summative assessment by a student as though it is their own work constitutes academic misconduct, unless explicitly stated otherwise in the assessment brief. More information about academic misconduct can be found in the AI section of the University's plagiarism webpage.
Academics and staff are permitted to make appropriate use of GenAI tools to support their own work and can find general guidance on staff use of GenAI, and specific assessment-related guidance. Check with your department first as different subjects may have different policies. Examiners are permitted to use GenAI tools in the processing and formulation of their own comments and feedback, however, they are not permitted to upload, copy, or submit student work to GenAI or other similar tools. There is guidance and support about the use of GenAI in Undergraduate Supervisions.
If you are using AI, here are some general guidelines:
Wolfson College has created this useful AI checklist for before you start, when you're working and when you're done.
When you're using GenAI, make it clear that you've used these tools if you're using the content produced: acknowledge their contribution to your work. Remember you will need to reference this in your work and so it is good practice to write down date/product name and so on as you are using the app.
Just like with literature searching and using keywords, when creating prompts in AI tools, it can be trial and error. Try follow-up prompts, building your prompt like you would an internet search, and filtering it with more detail. There are many frameworks you can follow, but one of the simplest is TAG:
Task, define it specifically
Actions, describe what needs to be done
Goal, explain the end result
For more tips on writing prompts, go to the creating prompts for AI section of the Wolfson College AI LibGuide or the introduction section of the CJBS GenAI LibGuide.
Further reading:
For academics, such as using GenAI for admin tasks.
Wolfson College's academic AI Libguide.
Cambridge Judge Business School's GenAI LibGuide
Generative AI and scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Using AI tools needs to be carefully considered for the reasons set out below.
Critical Thinking:
AI erodes your ability to think critically. It doesn't improve your cognitive ability; when your supervisors or lecturers set you a task, the exercise itself is what's important, not the output.
Don't just copy and paste AI generated content into work; it requires checking and editing, not least because you can't rely on the information to be correct.
Environmental impact and human rights concerns:
The ecological impact of GenAI must be taken into account: the environmental cost of AI data centres is considerable. An AI tool query, such as giving ChatGPT a prompt, consumes vastly more energy and resources than simple searches using a search engine or subject-specific database, which may provide more useful and accurate information.
Also, a number of AI tools make use of human workers behind the scenes, often engaging in exploitative and unethical labour practices.
Take care to use these tools only as and when necessary and be as efficient as possible to mitigate these effects.
Privacy:
Do not upload content containing personal, confidential or sensitive data without seeking more specific guidance from the College's IT Department. The app may be using your content for machine learning, taking it to train and develop its tool. There are also issues with storage with its security.
Copyright:
The data used by ChatGPT and other LLMs may have been stolen from authors who did not give permission for their data to be used in this way.
Biases:
Be aware of potential bias. GenAI tools are trained on data provided by humans, and as such can take on human biases and amplify them. Some common biases are:
Lack of transparency:
You don't know where the information is coming from, the sources it's using, the social biases behind it, where your content is going to and how long it will be stored for. As AI is a relatively new area still, regulations are patchy, if adhered to at all.
Deepfakes
Deepfakes are images or audio, made or edited with AI tools, which are fictional representations often of real people, usually made without their knowledge or permission. They make it harder to differentiate between fact and fiction, and can be used to promote and circulate disinformation.
Hallucinations:
Hallucinations are where GenAI produces inaccurate or made-up content. It can contradict itself as it collates information from many different sources. It is a lot like using predictive text: it only guesses, and the more niche your subject, or the more complicated your request, the more likely it is to get things wrong.
You should also be aware of AI bots that may join Teams meetings. These bots are used to take recordings and transcripts of the meeting outside of the College's usual controls. More information can be found on this University page: Preventing AI note-taking bots from joining a Teams meeting.
A good way of using GenAI is as a first port-of-call, like when you would use Wikipedia or Google for beginning a search or starting to research a topic. Other ways to use AI are:
Generated by ChatGPT, or did our library mascots really go to the moon?
Date of creation: 11/09/2025
Unless otherwise stated, this work is licenced under a CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence by Jesus College Cambridge.
