MA 16600 Analytical Geometry & Calculus II
Fall 2024 Syllabus Excerpt

What is the best way to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a student in this class? Consider these tips from ChatGPT.
 
Use AI and My Math Lab (MML) to help you learn rather than just earn points. For more, watch this 2 minute movie clip (a silent movie) and check out these tips.

Generative AI is trained to deliver a response with the shortest wait time possible. This may cause it to apply procedures you have not yet learned, omit steps altogether, or provide incorrect answers. AI may make up fictional answers just to shut you up. It will deliver rubbish to you as if it is absolute truth. A healthy distrust is appropriate. To coach AI, use these prompts:

• “Hey, slow down, check your results by using Python, and solve the problem step by step.”
• Whenever AI skips a step, it is more likely at that point that is delivering rubbish. Ask AI to tell you to fill in the missing steps. Tell them your grade level. “Drop down a notch, Einstein. Teach a first-year college student how to solve the problem step by step.” or “I haven’t learned that method yet. Tell me another way to solve it.”
• AI perceives emotion. It performs better if you say “It’s vital to me you get it correct and that it makes sense to me. My life depends on this.”

Generative AI might be used effectively to:

• help you learn a difficult concept. “Don’t give me solutions, but just give me help along the way”, i.e., like here (with Khan Academy) and here (with ChatGPT-4o developers). This will lower the chance you will get rubbish.
  Fun Fact: Machine learning uses a gradient descent algorithm (similar to Newton’s method from Calculus 1 in multiple dimensions using linear algebra with discrete data) which produces best results if you ask it to show steps.
• tell you how a concept might be important for your career path.
• create example quiz questions. “In terms of difficulty, on a scale of mild, medium, or spicy, make it <choose a level>.”
• tell you the best ways to study for an exam. 

At present, generative AI might not do very well with the following; however, in class I can show you how to:

• validate if your answer is correct or share how you can use other strategies to know if your answer is correct.
• critique if your solution is the best one possible or share if there is a more efficient or better approach.

No need to pay additional $: While Wolfram Alpha, Chegg’s Mathway, or other computer algebra systems are more robust than the current state of generative AI, there is often a paywall for these to explain the steps to the solution process. Do not pay. Instead, I recommend Pearson’s interactive AI-powered study tool newly launched this fall. While not flawless, this AI Tutor will draw from our textbook’s solution manual to more accurately guide you on your journey to understanding. It may be helpful to know another resource provided to Purdue students at no additional cost: Microsoft Copilot with Data Protection, available at copilot.microsoft.com/. To access Copilot, sign in with your PFW account credentials.