The push to use AI is strong, for many good reasons, but how do we use it responsibly?

I recently presented at the Teaching & Learning with AI conference hosted by the University of Central Florida . While there I was able to talk to a number of great faculty members, instructional designers, and others involved in higher education who are interested in AI. Our discussions ranged from how they use it, how others are using it, to an area that is often over looked, how it can be used ethically.

The presentations were top-notch and I feel like I took a lot from the conference. There was one item that really stood out to me, so much so, I even talked briefly about it in my own presentation 2 hours after hearing it.

In his presentation titled The Four Ethical Lenses of Ethics of Applied AI in Higher Education, Timothy Stafford brought the idea of the HI-HO Framework for using AI resources ethically. The reason this really stood out to me was that it was similar to how I have been trying to use AI – it just gave a name to it and fleshed it out more than I had.

The framework consists of three parts:

• Human In (HI): You engaging with the AI, such as creating and adjusting your prompt or adding resources for the AI to draw from
• Independent AI Work (-): This is the work the AI does, the generation of the text, image, or other content based on your prompting.
• Human Out (HO): This is where you go through the generated content – review, revise, and validate the output

If you have used large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, CoPilot, Grok, or the multitude of others, you should be aware that they do not always provide accurate outputs. This is why the last step in the HI-HO framework is the most important. If using outputs with students, we need to make sure that the content provided is accurate and truly represents our goals. Additionally, the output may not always read in a student friendly way, which is why it needs to be vetted.

If you would like to read more about this framework, Dr. Stafford has written a book: AI Ethics Unboxed: Empowering Students & Educators with the HI-HO Framework and Appendix A Methodology (visit his website for more information). He also wrote a more detailed post about the framework, The HI-HO Method: Ethical Use of Generative AI in Academic Settings.

Have you come across any frameworks or tips for using AI Ethically? We’d love to hear what ethical frameworks or practices you’ve used – leave a comment!

While this framework does not cover all aspects of the ethics surrounding AI, it does give a good starting point when using LLMs in your courses and course designs.

Featured image for this post was created using ChatGPT.