In SOCI57H, my first year honors’ seminar, many of my assignments incorporate ChatGPT use. For their term paper, students must pick an occupation or profession and explain how it has been rationalized (or not) over the past century. They use Microsoft’s Copilot/Bing as the main search engine because it is free and connects to the Internet, as well as make use of its generative AI abilities. For example, one assignment asks them to prompt Bing to give them evidence-based descriptions of what work in that occupation would be like 50 years ago and today. They follow up Bing’s initial answer by asking about how work would differ by a worker’s gender and race. Rather than set restrictions on the use of generative AI, I am encouraging it and helping students to engineer better prompts for the Chatbot.
Howard Aldrich, Kenan Professor of SociologySociology
SOCI57H, The Rationalization of Social Life in the 21st Century
Enrollment: 24