UC Irvine made its mark on the continued artificial intelligence (AI) evolution when it launched its generative AI tool, ZotGPT, to faculty in December 2023 and to students in April 2024. To raise awareness of ZotGPT among the student body, the Hub collaborated with the Office of Information Technology (OIT) AI Team to host the Let’s Taco-bout ZotGPT event at the ANTrepreneur Center on Oct. 15.
Rows of light green rollable chairs, large windows offering natural light and a patio area with complimentary tacos set the stage at the 5 p.m. event. Xanat Hernandez, communications director at the Office of Data and Information Technology, introduced the AI Team developers: Sarkis Daglian, director of AI, cloud and client solutions, and Chris Price, AI head engineer and architect.
“There’s a malicious rumor going around … about handing over your data to your professors … No, that doesn’t happen,” Daglian said, opening his presentation.
He then outlined a roadmap for the future of ZotGPT, including the upcoming launch of ClassChat, a “junior assistant” for instructors and professors, set to debut later this month.
“An instructor can take any of the artifacts from the class — readings, lectures — and upload them into ZotGPT ClassChat. And then they can create prompts against those modules,” Daglian told New University. “So if they want to create an exercise or an assignment against specific smaller parts of the data that they’ve fed it.”
Following the presentation, Daglian gave a demonstration of ZotGPT by inviting students to create a cover letter using the technology. He showed how the AI could simplify or enhance the letter with prompts like “simplify the letter; it’s too long” or “add specific examples,” guiding the group to receive a more structured result.
While addressing privacy concerns during a Q&A session, Daglian and Price explained to students that legally bound privacy policies are set in place and the user can simply delete their chat history “if [they’re] extra paranoid with people [they] don’t want seeing it.”
In developing ZotGPT, the AI team established policies that tackle privacy concerns, which can be viewed on the ZotGPT website.
“We have certain privacy and security controls that anything you put in a ZotGPT chat does not go out into the larger internet ecosystem,” Daglian told New University. “And so when it comes to privacy, if there’s stuff that you don’t want to get out, then using ZotGPT chat would be your most private and secure option.”
While Daglian and Price emphasized privacy controls and ZotGPT as the more private and secure AI option, third-year business administration student Artur Fedrizci expressed that he is not concerned about what companies do with his data, but instead appreciates the use of his data for customized content.
“Would you allow this app to track you? And I say ‘yes’ because it gives me ads of things that I actually want. I also used to work in marketing, so I like to learn and be updated with what the industry is doing, and the algorithm will only push for these fun things. And so I don’t really care that ZotGPT doesn’t sell my data,” Fedreizci told New University. “So to me, it doesn’t matter.”
While not explicitly asked, students’ questions reflected a broader discourse on academic dishonesty and AI. According to The Washington Post, professors and instructors were alarmed as the emergence of OpenAI’s ChatGPT posed challenges to academic integrity when students began submitting AI-generated responses to assignments.
Daglian acknowledged these concerns and said he would “never advocate for students to copy-paste” what an AI generates; instead, he encouraged others to think of AI as a tool and an assistant for one’s work.
“Like we have to accept that AI is out there and students are using it,” Daglian said. “Secondly, the tools that served as AI detectors like Turnitin.com up to this point have been unreliable. And so I think when you look at the landscape of where technology is headed, where everything out in the world is headed and where higher ed is headed, not even higher ed, just education in general, I think there are responsible ways to use AI in the course of teaching and learning.”
In response to these challenges, some institutions banned the use of AI. The UC system has taken steps to adapt by establishing overarching principles for its responsible use. However, policies may vary by professor.
“It depends on who you’re talking to,” Daglian said regarding student use of AI in courses.
Some students like Anthony Ahn and Darshan Golchha, both computer engineering students, believe ZotGPT is a useful tool for their courses.
“I find it useful when trying to learn coursework in my classes. It’s not just like doing the work for me; rather, it helps me get some footing in something I might not know or conduct research faster,” Ahn told New University.
Similar to Ahn, Golchha saves time using ZotGPT when tracing back to his lectures.
“I always record some of my lectures and then just use ZotGPT to generate summaries of them all the time,” Golchha told New University.
Ahn heard about ZotGPT back in April 2024. He was skeptical about how to properly use the AI due to online rumors that the university would track students’ usage. Now, he appreciates its accessibility.
“I liked it because it gave me access to GPT-4, their free service, while [ChatGPT] restricted how many messages I could send,” Ahn said. “And [ZotGPT] doesn’t [put rate limits on users], so I just have infinite access to GPT-4.”
Price explained that OpenAI currently charges $20 a month for unlimited access to its latest model, Generative Pre-trained Transformer 4 (GPT-4), while ZotGPT provides the same model to students and faculty free of charge and without usage limits, “democratizing access or choice for the technology.”
“Money shouldn’t stop people from accessing technology as powerful as this,” Gary Arzumanyan, a software developer on the OIT AI team, told New University. “The more we democratize AI use, the safer our data is if we keep it out of certain hands.”
Price, Arzumanyan and Daglian agreed that UCI’s innovation with AI is at the beginning of what will be a very impactful change. Going forward, Daglian encouraged students to embrace generative AI in the current evolving landscape.
“Generative AI is going to be a cornerstone skill in the job market, regardless of what your major is [or] what you’re hoping to do after UCI,” Daiglain said. “You will be at a competitive advantage if you are versed in using generative AI because you’ll be able to do things more efficiently and more effectively.”
Jeong-Min Hwang is a Features Intern for the fall 2024 quarter. She can be reached at jeongmh2@uci.edu.
Edited by Kaelyn Kwon, Sofia Feeney, Jaheem Conley and Jacob Ramos.