You may have heard of, or used, generative AI tools (shortened to AI or AI tools from now on) like ChatGPT, Copilot or Gemini. These are powerful tools that we have seen both disrupt and assist the learning of trainees at CYF. This page aims to guide you in best practices for AI use in the ITD.

To read the full AI guidelines for training at CYF, please access the AI Use Guidelines for Trainees.

AI: A predictive word-generator

AI assistants, like those mentioned above, are often large language models (LLMs). LLMs are “trained” on huge amounts of data to predict what word should come next in a sentence. Because they can read and generate text data, it feels like you’re messaging a smart “person”, but it is just software that has an algorithm for guessing what words should follow your input ( prompt🧶🧶 promptThe input we give an AI assistant. ).

Because AI tools “guess” the text to generate, they can make mistakes or make up things that don’t exist (hallucinations). For instance, a famous hallucination from 2024 was that many AI tools said there were two ‘r’s in the word strawberry.

AI hallucinations can be costly to a programmer. For instance, it has been reported that AI can make up names of code packages which don’t exist, and direct a programmer to use the package in their code. This comes with a security risk: malicious packages can get created with names often generated by AI to exploit their “predictions” and get coders to import viruses into their code.

This means that all output from AI is potentially untrustworthy, we should keep a critical eye on the output of AI tools.

Why do we need to be careful as ITD trainees?

At CYF, we prioritise building understanding so trainees can be employable in the tech industry. Employability in software engineering involves knowing how to debug broken code, find information you might not already know, and break down problems to find a solution. CYF mentors during the ITD and beyond will try to help you without giving away the answers or writing the code for you so you learn how to overcome hurdles yourself and apply that skill in the workplace when mentors aren’t around.

Why does it matter how we learn at CYF? What does it have to do with AI?

Well, it can be easy for AI tools to do the hard work for us, e.g. solving the problem, fixing errors, and writing emails for us. But when AI does the work for us, we may think we’re making progress and learning when we’re not. We’re actually not building skills that will make us employable. Instead we need to make sure we do that work ourselves, so that we build the skills that will help us in our careers.

AI can make mistakes when it’s guessing what output to return to the user, but it can also be led to give incorrect information when a prompt isn’t accurate. Which means we need to ask good questions (or prompts). As ITD learners, we are early in the CYF journey, so we are still building our foundational knowledge, which means it is more likely we will ask AI inaccurate questions and AI will give misleading results. It’s something to be aware of and cautious about - the accuracy of the questions we ask is important.

For now, remember to question and verify what AI tools give us back. If we can’t explain it, or verify the information with our own fact-finding, we shouldn’t use it.

What’s acceptable AI use in ITD

Generally, AI might be a good tool for:

• Explaining tech concepts in plain language
• Answering “what does this mean?” questions
• Getting a starting point for research

You need to exercise CAUTION and avoid the following situations:

• Letting AI write your CV
• Copying AI explanations without checking your understanding
• Just accepting the AI answer without exploring further

How to check if you’re using AI right

Ask yourself: Will you need to ask AI this question again the next time you face this task?

If the answer is:

• No - you’ve learned the skill and can demonstrate it without AI.
• Yes - you didn’t understand and have to ask again, try to recap this question with less AI assistance.
• Depends - did you learn the research skill to help you find answers in the future without AI help?

Questions

Question One

A CYF trainee is assigned coursework on a CYF course. The assignment is to build a homepage for a library that displays its twenty newest books. It requires that they use CSS Grid (a CSS feature used to display HTML elements in a grid format). They think that ChatGPT could help them complete this task.

Which of the prompts below is an appropriate use of AI by the trainee?

1. Generate a webpage to display information about books in a grid format.
2. Use CSS Grid to build a webpage to display twenty digital books.
3. Build a homepage for a library website.
4. I want to learn more about CSS Grid. Please explain the core concepts simply with examples.

Question Two

A CYF trainee asks an AI tool to help them understand a complex CSS topic. The information the AI gives doesn’t sound right.

Which of the below might be appropriate reactions from the trainee?

1. Googling the topic and looking for reliable sources to clarify the point.
2. Trying to persuade the AI to check again.
3. Accepting this as the truth because the AI seemed to know what it was talking about.
4. Asking a volunteer whether the AI is right.
5. Asking another AI tool. 

Question Three

A CYF trainee balances full-time work and family responsibilities with studying at CYF. They are struggling to keep up with the course. In particular, they are struggling to understand some fundamental concepts.

Which of the below are NOT appropriate actions by the trainee?

1. Asking volunteers for guidance at a session.
2. Giving an AI tool their assigned problems and asking it to solve them for them. They then copy and paste the output, making no edits.
3. Asking an AI tool to explain the concepts they find difficult to understand.
4. Attempting to solve the problems, then giving up and asking an AI tool to fix their code. Then copying and pasting the answer without understanding the changes it made.
5. Using Google to find articles on the topics they are struggling with. 
6. Copying another trainee’s answers.
7. Sending a direct message to an active volunteer.

What Should You Do?

1. Create a Google Doc

1. Create a Google Doc
2. Place your answers for each of the questions above into the doc
3. Add one to three sentences explaining why you chose the answers you did

2. Put your name in the document name

Include your given name or your family name in the title of the Google Doc.

3. Make your Google Doc public

Change the sharing settings of your Google Doc to “Anyone with the link can view”.

4. Submit the Google Doc link

Submit the link to the Google Doc in Step 3 on the CYF Course Platform.

A volunteer will review your submission and check that it meets the acceptance criteria. They will give you feedback on your submission and help you make any changes needed to meet the criteria.

Here are the criteria you need to meet:

• You have answered all three questions
• You have provided one to three sentences explaining each answer
• You have submitted the Google Doc link on the CYF Course Platform

Submission

You must do this on the CYF Course Platform.

1. Submit a link to your Google Doc

When you have a question, ask it.

When you have questions about coursework, ask in a workshop🧶🧶 workshopCode Your Future Workshops are meetings where you can get technical help. or in Slack🧶🧶 SlackSlack is messaging software - once you have downloaded Slack you can visit our Slack workspace to ask your questions.

You do not need to wait for a workshop to ask a question. You can ask questions in Slack at any time. We are here to help you understand and complete this course. Our goal is to help you learn.

Further Reading

You do not have to read these resources, but you might find them interesting or useful

• Hey programmers – is AI making us dumber?
• UN Development Report - A Matter of Choice: People and Possibilities in the Age of AI