Written By: Edward A. S. Ross, Jackie Baines, Jacinta Hunter, Fleur McRitchie Pratt, & Nisha Patel

Abstract: As generative artificial intelligence tools (GenAI) are becoming more ingrained in everyday life, it is crucial that students and teachers become aware of the ethical considerations for using these tools. Furthermore, knowing these considerations, students need to understand the most effective way to use these tools to support their studies. This article discusses three major elements. First, our collaborative work with teachers and students in the Department of Classics at the University of Reading to inform staff and students about the ethical issues that surround AI training, development, and overuse. Second, our work creating an informational booklet for using GenAI in ancient language learning with guiding phrases, prompts which can be copy-pasted as the first message in a generative AI chat box to guide a user’s experience. Finally, an analysis of survey data gathered from ancient language students in the University of Reading over the 2023-2024 academic year. By providing students with up-to-date ethics information about GenAI tools and providing them with tailored guides for using them in a manner that directly supports their learning, ancient language students become the users that direct GenAI’s outputs for a critical purpose rather than simply relying on GenAI to give them accurate information.

Keywords: generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), ancient languages, ancient Greek, Latin, AI ethics, AI and higher education, student-teacher collaboration, classics, ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini