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Artificial Intelligence

This guide is a basic overview of Artificial Intellegence through the lens of student research in an academic library.

Things to Consider

  • Understand when you can and cannot (as well as should and should not) use AI for your course work
  • AI outputs are based on prediction and pattern recognition NOT original creation or thought
  • Fallibility: fabrication + errors
    • Garbage in, garbage out
  • AI will ALWAYS give you an answer (in full confidence) whether it is correct or incorrect
  • If you are not an expert (or at least somewhat knowledgeable) on a topic, you cannot expect or trust AI to be
  • It is your responsibility to verify and edit the AI’s response!

AI Is Human Made

= Human errors multiplied + magnified

= Human potential + progress

Why is Critical Thinking Important in the Age of AI?

 
“The art of thinking about thinking in an intellectually disciplined manner.” (University of Nebraska-Lincoln)
  • Groundbreaking BBC research shows issues with over half the answers from Artificial Intelligence (AI) assistants (BBC, Feb 2025) (Full Report)
  • No algorithm can replace human wisdom and analysis. But no algorithm will need to if we have abandoned — wholesale — a millennium of critical reading and thinking skills. (Joan Westenberg)
  • Higher confidence in GenAI is associated with less critical thinking, while higher self-confidence is associated with more critical thinking. (Lee, Hao-Ping, et.all, 2025)

"...While GenAI can improve worker efficiency, it can inhibit critical engagement with work and can potentially lead to long-term overreliance on the tool and diminished skill for independent problem-solving. Higher confidence in GenAI’s ability to perform a task is related to less critical thinking effort. When using GenAI tools, the effort invested in critical thinking shifts from information gathering to information verification; from problem-solving to AI response integration; and from task execution to task stewardship."

Critical Thinking Questions for Interrogating AI Responses

  • What is the claim? 
  • What is the evidence to support that claim? 
  • What is the context and relevance? 
  • What is another way to look at this information/issue?
    • How might different people understand this information differently?
  • Who is sharing the information? Where else is it being shared?
  • What is being represented and what is being omitted?
  • Why does it matter?
  • How does this information make me feel and why?

Big Questions to Chew On

  • Why are we scared of AI?
  • How intelligent is AI?
  • Why isn’t AI factual?
  • Is using AI cheating?
  • Should I treat AI like a person?
  • Will AI take over the world?
  • Who owns AI creativity?
  • Is AI worth the effort?
  • How can we stay human in the Age of AI?

Adapted from Crystal Trice

SIFT

Jesuit Writings on AI