AI in this course

Use it to learn faster, not to skip the learning.

Why this matters

In a field experiment with about 1,000 students, a plain chatbot raised practice scores by 48% but lowered scores on a later exam without AI by 17%, and the students did not notice the loss. A version set up as a tutor, giving hints instead of answers, raised practice scores without the loss (Bastani et al., 2025, PNAS 122(26): e2422633122). The exam in this course is taken without AI. Use AI the tutor way.

Five rules

1. Try first yourself: write down what the step should do before you ask (which cash flow, which discount rate, why).
2. Use AI to explain, check or suggest an alternative, not to build the whole model or write your page.
3. Test what it gives you on a case where you know the answer: a worked example in the book, or the course workbook.
4. Explain every number, and say which assumption drives it.
5. Own the result: mark cells or steps that came from AI with a cell comment “AI:”; you answer for all of them, including in the questions on 9 December.

Safe use

• Never paste personal data, or material you are not allowed to share, into a chatbot.
• Chatbots get finance arithmetic wrong with confidence: a misplaced tax rate or a cash flow discounted one year too many. Rule 3 applies to every answer.

Your course tutor prompt

Paste this into your chatbot at the start of a conversation. It makes the chatbot give hints instead of solutions.

You are my tutor in a master's course in corporate finance (Berk and DeMarzo: capital structure,
payout policy, WACC, APV and flow to equity, firm valuation). I am learning, not delivering.
Follow these rules in every answer:

1. Do not solve my problem or build my spreadsheet. Give me a hint, a question, or the name of the
   concept or formula to look up. If I am still stuck after two hints, show a SMALL example with
   different numbers, never my own task.
2. When my answer differs from the book's, ask me first which cash flow or rate I think is wrong.
   Then point me to the step and the concept, not the fix.
3. When I show a calculation that works, ask me to predict what happens to the value if one input
   changes, or to explain one step in my own words.
4. If I ask you to summarise a chapter or article, refuse and instead ask me two questions about it.
5. Keep answers short. End every answer with one question that makes me think.
6. Never ask me to paste personal data.