Using Generative AI tools is not cheating if a faculty member approves its use in a class assignment.
However, if these tools have not been approved, students run the risk of violating NYU's Academic Integrity Policy as it defines cheating as:
"Deceiving a faculty member or other individual who assess student performance into believing that one’s mastery of a subject or discipline is greater than it is by a range of dishonest methods, including but not limited to:
Academic integrity can also be violated by participating in "any behavior that violates the academic policies set forth by the student’s NYU School, department, or division."
Thus, it is important for students and faculty to clarify the extent of the use of AI tools in specific classes and assignments.
NYU offers a number of Generative AI services for student, staff, and faculty use.
In addition to providing information regarding the institutional instances of Gemini and Notebook LM, NYU offers general guidance for student learning and faculty teaching tools and platforms.
Gemini — Google Gemini is a GenAI chatbot that can be used to create new content, streamline repetitive tasks, assist with communications, and more. Gemini is part of NYU Google Workspace Services, accessed alongside your other Google-based apps (e.g., as found in your NYU Email). However, this instance of Gemini is currently used as a standalone tool and is not integrated directly into other NYU Google apps such as Email and Docs. When you’re logged into Gemini with your NYU NetID account, Gemini never trains its AI model on your data. While it will save your past queries and Gemini's results, they are only available to you, and you can delete them at any time, ensuring your data remains private to you.
Notebook LM — NotebookLM is a personalized research assistant. You can upload various file types to the tool, ask questions about those files, receive answers with cited sources, and produce outputs such as summaries, briefing docs, timelines, FAQs, study guides, and audio overviews. Currently, NotebookLM is part of NYU Google Workspace Services, accessed alongside your other Google-based apps (e.g., as found in your NYU Email). However, like Gemini, Notebook LM is currently not used as a standalone tool and not integrated directly into NYU Google apps such as Email and Docs.
NYU Microsoft 365 (including Copilot) — Access all Microsoft web applications using your NYU Net ID. Copilot, a GenAI chatbot, may be accessed with login credentials.
AI Writing Detection has been disabled in the Turnitin Similarity Reports. For more information, see the NYU Knowledge Base articles below:
It should be noted that AI writing detection tools are unreliable and their use is cautioned.
It is unclear exactly how Generative AI tools work. This uncertainty raises some questions that may help evaluate the accuracy, reliability, relevance, and authority of the text that AI tools produce.
Finally, students may want to consider whether there is more value to using information from its original source versus what Generative AI tools generate.
In most cases, AI writing tools should not be used as an academic source of information. If used, it is always best to cite the original sources the tool lists as its citations, especially because AI tools often generate false citations (also known as "hallucinations").
However, if Generative AI is permitted for use in an assignment, instructors may want it acknowledged (or cited) when appropriate.
The main three citation styles, APA, MLA, and CMS all consider AI-generated text as "personal communication." This means the text generated by AI tools often cannot be verified, replicated, retrieved, nor recovered by anyone other the original author at the time of its generation. Even persistent URLs generated by AI tools can often only be accessed by the author. It is suggested that authors copy or save their entire prompt history and full generated responses for reference, formal acknowledgement (e.g., an appendix).
In general, acknowledgements of AI tools should include the following points (be sure to reference the citation style above for the proper ordering):
Note: Some instructors may want you to paste the entire response in an appendix. Be sure to clarify with instructors about their expectations.
Scribbr, a proofreading/citation checking site, offers some guidance for each style.
For additional citation assistance, please see the Libraries' Citation Guide.