Research & Referencing
AI and Chat Bots
Generative AI
If you have used an AI Chat Bot in your research, it is important that you are able to describe how you used it in your work. Depending on the type of research you are doing, you may include a description of how AI was used to assist you in your methods, your introduction or an appendix. It is good practice to check with your teacher how they want you to acknowledge the use of AI and to check to see whether or not AI is appropriate for the assessment.
As AI chats are not retrievable by others, some might argue that AI Chats should be described as Personal communication; however, as there are no humans involved in the correspondence, APA has deemed that AI Chats should be cited as software.
In-Text Citations
Provide the name of the author or producer (this could be a company or organisation) of the AI you are citing, and give the exact year of the version number of the AI software. This will generally be the same year in which you engaged with the AI.
Reference List
Information
- The author is the software company associated with the AI
- The publication date is the date the AI was used.
- The name of the programme is the name of the software used, for example, Stable Diffusion, ChatGPT.
- The version number may be difficult to find, so using the precise day and month the AI was used would be appropriate here.
- The bracketed description is flexible. In the case of Chatbots, [Large language model] is appropriate.
- A link to the AI used must be included.
Author, A. (Publication date). Name of programme (Version number) [Description]. http://xxxx of https://xxxxx
Open AI. (2023). ChatGPT (May 1 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat
Parenthetical citation: (Open AI, 2023)
Narrative citation: Open AI (2023)
Web-based AI Example with Parenthetical Citation
When prompted with “Is the left brain right brain divide real or a metaphor?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that this is a myth and that "the idea that someone's personality, creativity, or intelligence is determined by which side of their brain is dominant is not supported by scientific evidence" (Bing Chat, 2023)
Reference
Microsoft. (2023). Bing Chat (May 1 version) [Large language model]. https://Bing.com/chat
Narrative citation: According to ChatGPT (April 17, 2023), no scientific evidence to suggest this.
Parenthetical citation: There are no examples from the dataset. (OpenAI, July 17, 2020),
Downloaded AI Software
For AI software that has been downloaded, please follow the full citation requirements for software citations found here
Evidence
When using Chat Bots or other AI generative tools, it is recommended that you keep a log of the steps and prompts that you used. This may be submitted as part of your research notes (should they be required) or as an appendix to help illustrate your own input into the creation of the generative output.