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AI Resources

AI at Santa Clara

Key Guiding Principles for AI Use at SCU

Rooted and grounded in the University’s Jesuit values, the following core principles will guide the use, procurement, and design of AI technology at SCU with a human-centered approach. As the campus community engages with AI, these principles are intended to serve as guardrails while also fostering a vibrant culture of curiosity. They will position AI not merely as a tool for efficiency, but as an ethical means for promoting human flourishing and the common good. 

Core Principles

Guiding Principle: All AI development and use should be aligned with the University’s vision "to cultivate knowledge and faith to build a more humane, just, and sustainable world" and advance its educational mission. The means and ends for which AI is used must ultimately serve and promote human flourishing.

Community Members' Role:

  • Ensure that the common good and responsible global citizenship are a priority in the use, procurement and design of AI.

Guiding Principle: Foster a robust culture of critical thinking that leads to the creative use of AI tools, where appropriate, as an enhancement, not a replacement, for human reason.

Community Members' Role:

  • Cultivate AI literacy to understand AI’s capabilities, limitations, and potential biases to augment individual creativity and reasoning.

Guiding Principle: Human oversight is a required element of all AI deployment. Drawing upon the Rome Call for AI Ethics, "Those who design and deploy the use of AI must proceed with responsibility."

Community Members' Role:

  • Users retain ultimate accountability for all decisions and actions informed or assisted by AI.
  • Users must critically review and verify all AI-generated content for accuracy, appropriateness, and reliability, ensuring it reflects human judgment and is free from errors, biases, and copyright infringement.

Guiding Principle: Personal and confidential information must be rigorously protected.

Community Members' Role:

  • Ensure strict adherence to all laws and university policies regarding data security, intellectual property, and confidentiality.

Guiding Principle: AI tools should be reliable, accurate, and safe for their intended purpose. The university is responsible for vetting and testing systems.

Community Members' Role:

  • Ensure only University-approved AI tools are used.

Guiding Principle: We will use AI and technology in ways that put people first by ensuring accessibility, inclusion, and equitable access for all community members. We will prioritize procuring tools that are fair, transparent, and reliable, while avoiding those proven to produce harmful bias, misinformation, or excessive errors.