Shu Wan
University at Buffalo
This assignment asks students to compare descriptions of influential female figures from Chinese history generated by ChatGPT and in academic writings with those of their male counterparts. Afterwards, students write a short reflective essay addressing the bias in the historical representations of ChatGPT-generated information. With this assignment, students will recognize the risk of unconditional reliance on ChatGPT and other Generative AI applications. Moreover, they are expected to rethink Chinese history from the gendered and feminist perspective.
Learning Goals
Original Assignment Context: a mid-term writing assignment in a lower-level undergraduate Asian history course
Materials Needed
Overview
The design of this assignment originates from my concern about students' tendency to unconditionally trust AI-generated content instead of reading authoritative scholarship when studying history. I also noticed the prevalence of misogyny within information produced by ChatGPT when conducting research with its assistance. Concerned about enhancing students' AI and feminist literacy, I designed this assignment to contain four components: 1) class reading, 2) prompt composition, 3) critical thinking, and 4) reflective writing. Students are first assigned to read classic research about famous women in Chinese history, including Empress Wu Zhetian (in the Tang Dynasty), Xue Shaohui (in the Qing Dynasty), along with Song Qingling, Jiang Qing, and Deng Yingchao (in the 20th century). These course readings aim to help students to comprehend how academic historians assess those women, and then students are then encouraged to ask ChatGPT to assess their lives and political achievements.
By contrasting the different assessments of the exact historical figures in ChatGPT-produced summaries and academic writings, students are encouraged to think critically about how these women's roles are represented, and often belittled, in LLM outputs. For example, in my engagement with ChatGPT about Song Qinglin, a leader of the modern Chinese feminist movement, ChatGPT emphasized her as merely being Sun Yat-sen's wife. In the end, students are required to reference class readings and relevant academic literature to compose a two-page essay, which regards how the ChatGPT-generated text overlooks ht. This assignment was initially employed in an undergraduate course titled “China in the World” in the summer of 2023, in which most students succeeded in recognizing the limitations of ChatGPT for the purpose of studying history.
When seeking information for completing assignments or gaining knowledge, students commonly use ChatGPT and its Q&A function as an alternative to Google. Despite its convenience, Generative AI is fraught with prejudice and bias, such as racism and .ChatGPT is a valuable but not reliable resource for academic purposes, especially for Asian history. Unfortunately, not all ChatGPT users recognize the risk but unconditionally trust the machine-produced information.
This assignment encourages students to use ChatGPT critically by recognizing its biased information about Chinese women's history. By contrasting the descriptions of prominent Chinese female figures in ChatGPT-generated information and course readings with those of their male counterparts, students are expected to complete the assignment in the following steps.
Step 1: Choose a female figure and appropriate course readings: Students are required to choose one of the course readings and read it with the scholarly assessment of women in Chinese history in mind. For example, students may select Edwards's book, which underlines Song Qinglin's achievement in leading the feminist movement in 20th-century China.
Step 2: Write prompts about the female figure on ChatGPT and contrast the generated information with the course reading: After learning about the particular feminist figure in Chinese history, students should ask ChatGPT questions, such as "Who is Song Qinglin?" After reading the ChatGPT-generated information, students may find that it emphasizes her marriage to modern China's Founding Father Sun Yat-sen, her interference with partisan policies, and her contribution to humanitarianism. However, according to Edwards, Song was a crucial feminist in 20th-century China.
Step 3: Write prompts on Chinese male figures. According to the choice of women figures, students are required to inquire with ChatGPT about one of them, including Li Shiming (for Wu Zetian), Liang Qichao (for Xue Shaohui), Sun Yat-sen (for Song Qinglin), Chairman Mao/Mao Zedong (for Jiang Qing) and Deng Yingchao (for Zhou Enlai).
Step 4: Compose a 2-page reflective essay (400-500 words), responding to the following prompts. The essay should not merely be a summary of ChatGPT-generated information. The essay should contain the following steps:
● Summarize the figures and readings selected for this assignment (in approximately 50-100 words).
● Compare the different descriptions of male and female figures in ChatGPT and relevant course readings (in 100-150 words).
● Examine the differences between the two sources from a feminist perspective (in 100-150 words).
● Discuss how to "overcome" the limitations of Generative AI in future history studies beyond the classroom (in 50-100 words).
Taking Song as an example, the essay should begin with a summary and then discuss the ChatGPT-generated information’s oversight of Song's achievement as a pioneering feminist, despite the emphasis of this point in Edwards's book; moreover, the ChatGPT-generated information about Sun rarely mentions his spousal relationship with Song, while it was foregrounded when speaking of Song. The third part reviews the contradiction from the perspective of misogyny, which underestimated women's independence and individual agency. Finally, the essay could address the bias in the ChatGPT-generated information about American history.
Step 5: Submit both the essay and ChatGPT-generated information via email to the instructor.