Adapted from an AI use policy developed by Prof. Sean Lubner (Boston University), modified for this course.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a rapidly evolving and powerful tool that will increasingly shape the professional world. To succeed in your future career, you will need to demonstrate what unique value you can contribute beyond what any untrained individual with access to AI could produce. First and foremost, this means genuinely understanding the mathematical and computational foundations you will be taught in this and your other classes. In the context of this course, this means the mathematics of symmetry, group representations, and geometric reasoning that underlie machine learning for structured scientific data.

The effectiveness of a tool scales with the skill of its user. For you, this means understanding the principles you are asking AI to assist with, critically evaluating the accuracy and relevance of its output, and being able to independently justify both its solutions and your own. You must be able to think for yourself.

Simply using AI to blindly generate solutions without engaging with the underlying mathematics will harm your learning and ultimately leave you at a disadvantage after graduation. However, if you use AI strategically as a learning aid, to explore concepts, clarify doubts, or test your understanding, you will develop a depth of reasoning and technical fluency that sets you apart and is truly valuable. Learn to collaborate with AI rather than depend on it. Focus on building a deep understanding of the structure behind the algorithms and the mathematics that makes them work, so that AI remains a tool rather than a crutch.

In this class:

• You are permitted (but not required) to use AI tools for exercises (homeworks) as a learning aid. You are responsible for fully understanding any solution you submit and for being able to explain or reproduce your reasoning independently.
• Exams (and exam corrections) will be pen-and-paper, without access to AI tools, so your independent understanding and ability to reason through problems will determine the majority of your grade.