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The contemporary emergence of generative AI provides an ideal topic for students studying the legal ramifications of disruptive technology. Evana Wright outlines a new assessment task she is implementing in Autumn 2023 designed to critically engage students with this rising challenge.
Academic in focus: Evana Wright
Dr Evana Wright is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law University of Technology Sydney researching in the fields of intellectual property, the protection of Indigenous traditional knowledge, as well as the regulation of technologies such as IoT devices and databases.
Disruptive Technologies and the Law is a subject designed to prepare students for emerging complexities that challenge regulatory frameworks, legal practices, and society more broadly.
Objectives
- A new assessment task is designed to help students respond to new technology and the legal issues that might be raised by new technologies.
- Students needed to consider:
- how AI was going to relate to their practice, as these tools will be used in the future
- strengths, limitations and issues around using AI systems
The task
It may be difficult for academics to determine whether AI has been used by students (without acknowledgment) in preparing an essay. Therefore, a research essay assessment was adjusted to respond to this challenge.
The assessment consist of two components – a critical analysis and a self reflection.
Critical analysis
Students are asked to request that ChatGPT ‘Critically analyse the definition of personal information in the Privacy Act 1998 (Cth)’. Students then must develop and articulate a critical analysis of the ChatGPT response. They are asked to carry out independent research, critically evaluate that research and communicate their findings in an accessible and fluent written form.
Self reflection
Students must then reflect on the critical analysis task, setting out the use and limitations (if any) of artificial intelligence in legal practice. Self-reflection is designed to relate student learning and experience back to the subject content, drawing off personal insights from the task.
Students are encouraged to use the AI-driven writing tool AcaWriter to assist them in completing their self reflection. AcaWriter was developed at UTS and provides feedback on reflective writing.
AI results
Initial testing of ChatGPT shows that the AI system generates a very limited and, in some cases, incorrect response to research questions dealing with privacy legislation and Australian law.
What next?
- An ethics application in through IML to try and evaluate the task to try and capture more data from the students
- Perhaps a survey to get student feedback on their thoughts about the task