Copilot is a chatbot-style generative artificial intelligence, similar to ChatGPT. City St George’s recommend using this tool using University credentials over other solutions. When using your City St George’s login with Copilot your interactions are safer than they are with other solutions. The underlying technology is a version of the GPT-4 architecture developed by OpenAI.
The version of Copilot you have access to is just ‘Copilot,’ in an earlier iteration this was known as Bing, or Bing Chat. This is not the same as Microsoft 365 Copilot – which is embedded in Office products and requires a separate license.
Confusingly, the name ‘Copilot’ is being used by many companies and entities, as this is a good descriptor of what those products aim to provide for users. For example, generative AI tools, such as GitHub Copilot, Microsoft 365 Copilot (i.e., the Office and Teams integration), and at City St George’s Co-pilots are employed to provide in-room assistance with hybrid teaching technology.
How can I use Copilot?
Copilot is a chatbot-style generative artificial intelligence. You can communicate with Copilot using text, images, audio, and files. Microsoft has extensive documentation on using Copilot. Microsoft also provide a full list of available file formats; which includes common word processing and image formats such as .docx, .pdf, .jpeg as well as more technical and programming orientated formats.
Copilot has internet access and will sometimes include internet search results and content in its response. This citation ability is intended to provide clarity about how responses are formed, it should not be taken as a sign that the information is correct. If you would prefer it not to do so, tell it, insert a comment like “do not use internet search in your response.”
Prompting language models is a skill and takes practice. Provide as much detail and as much specificity as possible. Provide examples of what you mean or are asking for, remember that you are directing a kind of character, and you can ask it to respond from multiple perspectives. “You are an expert in Excel spreadsheets.” Be creative.
The scope for potential uses is wide and the full potential is unknown. Unfortunately, this wide scope encompasses dangerous and risky applications. These could be in the context of academic misconduct, invasion of privacy, amplification of discrimination, or endangering personal safety.
You should be judicious and practical when interacting with Copilot, do not treat its answers as fact. On of the most common criticisms of generative AI is that they can produce hallucinations, for example made up studies or information.
Keeping your data secure
When logged in with your University credentials, commercial data protection applies to the chat. Microsoft does not store prompts and responses. Your conversations and data are not used as training data for models in the future. Conversation data is stored while the window is running and is removed after the window is closed.
If you wish to save content from your interactions for future use, there are copy buttons below each message. If you want to save the whole conversation, you will have to try either Ctrl+A or using the mouse to highlight all the content then copy and paste into a word processor or note-taking application.
However, you should use the technology with caution and must not upload any personal, sensitive or confidential data into CoPilot.