Drafted by:
Ravit Dotan, PhD
Data Technology Ethics Consultant
Former Director of The Collaborative AI Responsibility Lab, Center for Governance and Markets
Lisa S. Parker, PhD
Dickie, McCamey & Chilcote Professor of Bioethics
Director, Research, Ethics and Society Initiative of Pitt Research
John G. Radzilowicz, EdD
Director, Teaching Support
University Center for Teaching and Learning
Committee charge
The Ad Hoc Committee on Generative AI in Research and Education (hereafter ‘Committee’) was constituted and charged by former Provost Cudd, Interim Provost McCarthy, and SVC Rutenbar to:
- Articulate a “positive but careful approach” to Generative AI (GenAI) ;
- Identify topics where guidance is needed regarding GenAI applications in research, teaching, and learning;
- Conduct benchmarking with peer institutions regarding policies or guidance on GenAI uses, particularly research uses as Pitt’s Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) has already gathered so much on educational uses;
- Map the landscape for uses of GenAI at Pitt (including research and instructional uses);
- Crowdsource and gather together GenAI resources, initiatives, activities (e.g., short courses), and programming at Pitt; and
- Identify key areas in which Pitt can position itself as a leader in the GenAI arena.
After receiving its charge, the Ad Hoc Committee on Generative AI in Research and Education (Committee) met regularly September 2023 – February 2024 (Appendix A). The Committee recognized that well-informed, judicious employment of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI)—and artificial intelligence (AI)—holds potential to promote equity, improve efficiency, enhance learning, expand knowledge, and prepare people to participate in civic life and geopolitics.
Like much of the GenAI-focused programming offered at Pitt during the past year (Appendix G), the Committee recognized the value of examining uses of GenAI and AI from humanistic and social science-informed perspectives, as well as the importance of considering the normative questions—the ‘whether’ and ‘if so, how’ questions—that attend use of these tools.
The Committee recognized that the range of uses of GenAI/AI, the normative landscape surrounding those uses, and the technology itself are rapidly evolving. Therefore, following submission of this report—with its Points to Consider framework, which may serve as a “living framework” for future deliberations—the Committee suggests that it (or some other body) continue to review the GenAI/AI landscape at least annually for the foreseeable future.
The Committee’s Report opens with the Committee’s Recommendations (§2). The first set recommends priorities for Pitt to address internally and most immediately in response to pressing needs. The second set recommends actions to position Pitt as a leader in the GenAI/AI arena.
These Recommendations (§2) are grounded in the Committee’s investigations, including its:
- Benchmarking Project to identify peer institution’s GenAI policies and practices (Appendix B),
- Mapping Project exploring faculty perspectives on GenAI through surveys and focus groups in eight Pitt units (Appendix C), and
- Journal and Publisher Policies Project examining policies regarding use of GenAI in academic publishing (Appendix D),
as well as its discussions, which identified: - Uses of GenAI in three domains of higher education—teaching and learning, research, and administrative and service activities (§3) and
- Risks and Potential Benefits of GenAI use (§4),
which together informed its articulation of: - Points to Consider in addressing concerns or developing policy regarding GenAI (§5).
The Committee urges that these Points to Consider be employed when implementing its Recommendations.
The Committee’s Recommendations for positioning Pitt as a leader in the GenAI/AI arena reflect three distinctive features of Pitt:
- Pitt’s strength in education and education research;
- Pitt’s strength in health sciences, the Pitt/UPMC connection, and the integrated, multi-level structure of the UPMC health system; and
- Pitt’s nature as a community-engaged University, with strength in the arts, humanities, and sciences, as well as professional schools, and a commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration to address—and to prepare students to address—”big questions.”