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Lab Policy on AI in Writing & Communication · John Hewitt

cs.columbia.edu · 1,470 words · saved by 2 readers

This document contains the expectations for my lab group for the use of AI in writing and communicating about research. I'm writing these policies in part to help guide my students, and in part to discuss some of the underlying issues about thinking. This policy may change in the future as we discuss and adapt as a lab. These expectations have scope over all writing and communication in the lab: writing papers, presentations in lab meetings, weekly 1:1s, slack updates, etc. I use AI agents throughout my work, especially in coding. They allow me to get more done than I'd otherwise be able to. However, our skills atrophy when they are not used, or worse, we never develop them at all. As such, I'm concerned about getting my own use of AI right somehow, and even more concerned about instilling good practices in my students. It's possible that some skills I love—like mucking with tensors and thinking about neural architectures—will be less necessary in the future. But communicating and clea

Writing and verbal communication are core research skills we need to practice. All paper first drafts must be written without AI. Lab communication must follow the first-follow-up rule: lab members should know enough details about the code, experiments, and presentations they give to answer a reasonable first follow-up question from a labmate without checking with their AI assistant. This document contains the expectations for my lab group for the use of AI in writing and communicating about research. I'm writing these policies in part to help guide my students, and in part to discuss some…

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