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At the moment, there are 81 posts with the phrase "chatGPT". Although it is generally not a favourite topic around here (but still will probably only become more relevant), I would say it is enough traffic about the topic that it would merit the creation of a chatgpt tag (or a more general tag that can be used for questions about the use of AI tools in the context of academia). Especially since is explicitly not for such questions, but only for questions concerning the study of or a career in AI.

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  • To be clear, would this be a main site tag (about using such tools in real life), a meta tag (about using such tools here), or both?
    – cag51 Mod
    Jul 25 at 14:27
  • A main site tag only for now. And just for clarification: creating such a tag is not meant as an encouragment to use ChatGPT or other AI tools, but simply as a folder to put such questions in (as they will very likely keep on coming) and we have tags with far fewer posts that exist.
    – Sursula
    Jul 25 at 15:01
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    Generative AI might be more inclusive.
    – Bryan Krause Mod
    Jul 25 at 15:17
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    As there have been some edit wars over this tag, I will feature this post to gain a consensus from the community. For now, please do not re-create the tag until there is a more clear consensus.
    – Wrzlprmft Mod
    Aug 19 at 12:41

4 Answers 4

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I agree that we should have a tag for this, being named with and as synonyms. The tag description should make clear that this is about the usage of generative AI in an academic setting, not about researching, understanding, or operating it.

This tag is useful, since:

  • Users can have a particular expertise on the legal, ethical, and other professional aspects of using generative AI in an academic context. Thus there are conceivably people who subscribe to this tag.
  • Questions on the subject are not necessarily easily searchable since there is no keyword that is certain to be used in such questions. A tag addresses this problem.

The only argument against it I heard so far is from Buffy in chat:

the questions aren't about generative ai, per se, but about its use as a writing tool.

I don’t see why this is a problem. As evidenced by the questions on it, using this tool raises ethical questions and this is some of the things this site is about. Understanding generative AI per se would be off-topic here, as would be questions on how to exactly operate it.

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  • Unless there is a simplified UI that I am not aware of, there is no need for genai as a synonym to generative-ai. On both my computer and phone, if I type either "gen" or "ai" the longer form will pop up.
    – Buffy
    Aug 19 at 19:19
  • @Buffy: My thought was that the synonym shouldn’t cause any harm while it’s hard to capture all UI and usage cases. For example, somebody who quickly types genai into the tag field may not be offered generative-ai, as it is not a substring (to test this, you can use gradschool).
    – Wrzlprmft Mod
    Aug 20 at 9:17
  • Should we forgo all abbreviations and go for generative-artificial-intelligence as the main name instead?
    – Federico Poloni
    Aug 20 at 12:40
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    @FedericoPoloni: In that particular case, I would argue that AI is already more common than artificial intelligence and will increasingly become even more so. Spelling it out would be as useful as spelling out JPEG or laser.
    – Wrzlprmft Mod
    Aug 20 at 13:14
  • @Wrzlprmft As this is the answer with the most upvotes, should we create the tag generative-ai now (including a tag wiki) and start (slowly, as per the suggestion of Buffy to not flood the active questions queue) migrating old questions that fit it?
    – Sursula
    Aug 28 at 7:45
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    @Sursula: Yes. Feel free to go ahead.
    – Wrzlprmft Mod
    Aug 28 at 8:38
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    @Wrzlprmft I have created a tag with a short description, the wiki still needs to be created but that can happen later. I will retag the existing questions over the next few days with enough time between the questions to prevent spamming the active questions list with it.
    – Sursula
    Aug 28 at 9:05
  • @Wrzlprmft maybe you could add the "status completed" tag to the question?
    – Sursula
    Aug 28 at 9:06
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    @Sursula: I edited the tag wiki, created synonyms, and status-completed this.
    – Wrzlprmft Mod
    Aug 28 at 11:11
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I believe it makes sense to have a tag for generative AI related questions as there are quite a lot of them. There are tags for much less frequented topics and just the fact we might not like the topic itself (I'm with Buffy there) is IMO no justification to not create a tag and not make site navigation easier. The creation of a tag also makes finding previous questions easier and might thus prevent duplicates. But I completely agree that genai is a terrible tag name and that a description is needed.

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  • Please don't add the new tag to too many old posts in a single day. Flooding the active questions page makes site usage harder, especially for those seeking help.
    – Buffy
    Aug 28 at 12:21
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I believe genai is a terrible name (sorry), especially for those who don't speak English as a main language. Even gen-ai would be better, but if a tag is needed, then (strong opinion) spell it out: generative-ai, and hyphenate it. There is no downside to this with the current UI. A chatgpt tag is (IMO) too specialized. It is only an example.

Another strong opinion: If you want to add a new tag, and aren't a novice here, then, at least give it tag wiki. Had that been done then I might not have immediately started deleting it. Both the name (genai) and the lack of wiki led me to think it was a misspelling of something else.

I don't personally think a new tag is needed but won't object if it is clearer, both in name and intent (as stated in the wiki).

I do, however, have serious reservations about chatGPT and its ilk. I think it is taking us in a wrong direction. It isn't intelligent. It has no ethical sense. It has no judgement. Worse, it is now recursively getting worse as the "training" data is now too-much the old results that it created itself. I think it is dangerous for all use other than research in such tools, which might have potential, but now seem to present only danger.

Additionally, for this site, retagging 81 old questions with any new tag is a mistake unless done one or two at a time over many days. It floods out all of the new posts on the active questions page. We've faced this problem before in phasing out a poor tag.

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  • "If you want to add a new tag, and aren't a novice here, then, at least give it tag wiki" fair point but sorry I've been avoiding writing wiki tags on SE since the money.meta.stackexchange.com/a/3089/5656 debacle.
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Aug 19 at 16:21
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    I do, however, have serious reservations about chatGPT and its ilk. – Many of us do, but that doesn’t mean that people aren’t going to use it in an academic setting and people may have questions on how to handle this ethically, legally, and otherwise. To give an extreme counter-example, I hope that nobody here likes sexual misconduct, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad to have a tag about it.
    – Wrzlprmft Mod
    Aug 20 at 9:09
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I went ahead and created a tag following Bryan Krause's suggestion: .

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