Chapter 5 - Section 2 - Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI)

Policy

This policy provides guidance for the ethical, secure, and responsible use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) tools at Renton Technical College (RTC). It is designed to support innovation while protecting institutional data, preserving academic integrity, and ensuring compliance with applicable privacy, intellectual property, and data governance standards.

Purpose

Renton Technical College (RTC) embraces technological advancement and is committed to providing the campus community with cutting edge technological resources. RTC recognizes the potential that generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) tools have to advance research, instruction, learning and daily office functions at the college. As RTC adopts emerging technology, it is important to provide guidelines for the responsible and effective use of these emerging technologies. This policy aims to provide an overview of considerations, best practices, and ethical guidelines for using Gen AI tools at RTC.

Definitions

Category 1-4 Data: In brief, all data that any WA State Agency has or generates is categorized in levels from Category 1 (Public Information) to Category 4 (Confidential Information Requiring Special Handling). Categorized data is defined by RCW and WATech’s Data Classification Standard (SEC-08-01-S).

Category 4 – Confidential Information Requiring Special Handling

Confidential information requiring special handling is information that is specifically protected from disclosure by law and for which:

• Especially strict handling requirements are dictated, such as by statutes, regulations, or
• Serious consequences could arise from unauthorized disclosure, such as threats to health and safety, or legal sanctions.

Category 3 – Confidential Information

Confidential information is information that is specifically protected from disclosure by law. It may include but is not limited to:

• Personal information about individuals, regardless of how that information is
• Information concerning employee personnel
• Information regarding IT infrastructure and security of computer and telecommunications

Category 2 – Sensitive Information

Sensitive information may not be specifically protected from disclosure by law and is for official use only. Sensitive information is generally not released to the public unless specifically requested.

Category 1 – Public Information

Public information is information that can be or currently is released to the public. It does not need protection from unauthorized disclosure but does need integrity and availability protection controls.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI): A technology that can create content, including text, images, audio, or video, when prompted by a user. Generative AI systems learn patterns and relationships from massive amounts of data, which enables them to generate new content that may be similar, but not identical, to the underlying training data. The systems generally require a user to submit prompts that guide the generation of the content. (This definition is adapted from the US Government Accountability Office Science and Tech Spotlight: Generative AI)

Scope

All students who are enrolled at Renton Technical College (RTC) as well as employees will be bound to this policy.

Responsibility

A. Responsible Use of Generative AI Technology

When using Gen AI technology individuals shall never enter Category 3 or Category 4 data, and take caution when entering Category 2 data. Information shared with Gen AI is not private and could expose proprietary or sensitive information to unauthorized parties. Information provided in prompts to Gen AI is often stored by the AI software to be used in future outputs and to train or re-train future Gen AI models.

Gen AI has made it easier for malicious actors to create sophisticated scams, and individuals using AI technology must consider privacy risks, exposure of intellectual property, and the potential threat of data breaches utilizing information provided to Gen AI software. RTC works to ensure that all software and applications procured on behalf of the college have the appropriate privacy, security, and accessibility protections in place prior to purchase.

B. Originality, Plagiarism, Ethical Concerns and Academic Integrity

There are many ethical concerns regarding the data that is used to train Gen AI models. These include but are not limited to:

• AI-generated content can be inaccurate, misleading, or entirely fabricated and may contain copyrighted material.
• Gen AI tools can "hallucinate" or create text and images that sound and look plausible but deviate from reality or have no basis in fact.
• Gen AI models often include biases from the data they are trained AI systems can exhibit biases that stem from their programming and data sources; for example, machine learning software could be trained on a dataset that underrepresents a particular gender or ethnic group. Many of the biases in Gen AI have yet to be fully identified and understood due to the newness of the technology and emerging capabilities.
• Gen AI software offers extremely limited transparency into the data which is used to train their models.
• Unauthorized inclusion of others’ works; rights and attributions - In addition to including the works of others without authorization, some Gen AI software will imitate creators without clearly stating so and offering proper credit and attributions, and many artists, authors, programmers, and creators have discovered content generated by AI models that is nearly identical to their In many cases, there was never any authorization granted to use their works as part of the Gen AI software’s training data. This can be of particular concern when using AI generated content in research and academic work as it may include another person's work with incorrect or no citation and attribution.

C. Best Practices for Using Generative AI Tools

While Gen AI tools can be used to aid in creativity, the originality of the content they produce may be debated. Individuals should be familiar with the terms of use for the software which they are using. Individuals using Gen AI are encouraged to experiment with the software and familiarize themselves with the tool’s capabilities and limitations but should be aware that they are responsible for appropriate use of the content they create when using Gen AI.

• Individuals should always carefully review and edit any information they generate using an AI tool.
• Individuals should not use AI in a way which violates college policy, or any existing State or Federal laws.
• Individuals shall not enter confidential information or critical infrastructure information that will result in sharing information’s that would not otherwise be accessible (e.g. Security, Facilities or IT infrastructure, etc.)
• Individuals are responsible for ensuring that AI generated content does not infringe on the intellectual property rights of third parties, includes proper citations, and aligns with the college’s policies and procedures.
• Photos created or edited using AI for official RTC purposes should follow RTC’s best practices representing RTC’s diversity of race and ethnicity.