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Professor writes history essays with ChatGPT and has students correct them

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Re: Professor writes history essays with ChatGPT and has students correct them

#51

Post by jerrre »

8organicbits wrote: post #21
angarg12 wrote: post #18

I'm an active interviewer for a FAANG company. I've run some of my interview questions through ChatGPT with mixed results. I'd say that on it's current form it could easily help a Junior candidate to pass the interview, not so much for a mid or senior (yet). In an internal slack channel I proposed to generate (incorrect) solutions for coding problems with ChatGPT and have candidate do code reviews as an alternative i…

Wouldn't you want to curate? Maybe I'm missing the point too.

He can still curate right?

Re: Professor writes history essays with ChatGPT and has students correct them

#52

Post by datastoat »

I'm trying something similar with an introductory Algorithms class.

After we go through Breadth First Search, there's a practical assignment where students are asked to modify the algorithm to return _all_ shortest paths. Then I ask ChatGPT for its solution, and students try to spot its mistakes.

Later, after going through the proof of correctness of Dijkstra's algorithm, I ask ChatGPT for a proof of correctness of its all-shortest-paths algorithm, and again students try to spot what's wrong in the proof. I want students to learn to tell the difference between a bullshit proof and a real proof; in the past I've given them bullshit proofs from real students in exams, but ChatGPT makes the point more nicely.

Finally, students are asked to figure out prompts that will make ChatGPT give a correct algorithm and proof. I haven't managed this myself! I'm looking forwards to seeing what students manage.

Here's a link to lecture notes, including the ChatGPT dialog: https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/2223/Algorithm2/alg2-full....

Re: Professor writes history essays with ChatGPT and has students correct them

#53

Post by danuker »

datastoat wrote: post #52

I'm trying something similar with an introductory Algorithms class. After we go through Breadth First Search, there's a practical assignment where students are asked to modify the algorithm to return _all_ shortest paths. Then I ask ChatGPT for its solution, and students try to spot its mistakes. Later, after going through the proof of correctness of Dijkstra's algorithm, I ask ChatGPT for a proof of correctness of i…

It's an arms race. As students cheat with ChatGPT, teachers should incorporate tactics throwing it off, perhaps using ChatGPT themselves.

I think what you are doing is great! Good luck going forward!

Re: Professor writes history essays with ChatGPT and has students correct them

#54

Post by esperent »

datastoat wrote: post #52

I'm trying something similar with an introductory Algorithms class. After we go through Breadth First Search, there's a practical assignment where students are asked to modify the algorithm to return _all_ shortest paths. Then I ask ChatGPT for its solution, and students try to spot its mistakes. Later, after going through the proof of correctness of Dijkstra's algorithm, I ask ChatGPT for a proof of correctness of i…

> Finally, students are asked to figure out prompts that will make ChatGPT give a correct algorithm and proof. I haven't managed this myself! I'm looking forwards to seeing what students manage.

Isn't there a probabilistic nature to ChatGPT replies? So even if a student finds a response that gives a correct proof, that doesn't mean it'll work every time. Or am I wrong here?

Re: Professor writes history essays with ChatGPT and has students correct them

#55

Post by michaelt »

8organicbits wrote: post #21
angarg12 wrote: post #18

I'm an active interviewer for a FAANG company. I've run some of my interview questions through ChatGPT with mixed results. I'd say that on it's current form it could easily help a Junior candidate to pass the interview, not so much for a mid or senior (yet). In an internal slack channel I proposed to generate (incorrect) solutions for coding problems with ChatGPT and have candidate do code reviews as an alternative i…

Wouldn't you want to curate? Maybe I'm missing the point too.

The eternal loop in job interview questions.

Should you ask very similar questions, to keep candidates on a level playing field by always measuring to the same standard?

Or should you vary the questions a lot, to keep candidates on a level playing field by not advantaging those who've seen leaked questions on glassdoor?

Re: Professor writes history essays with ChatGPT and has students correct them

#56

Post by danuker »

maegul wrote: post #46
kqr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is very insightful on many levels. Do you happen to have a blog or something where you write about stuff?

Huh … Thanks for the praise, but I’m way too disorganised for that and hardly have thoughts worth more than a paragraph like above!

Indeed. Whoever wants to, can organize your thoughts themselves: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=maegul

Re: Professor writes history essays with ChatGPT and has students correct them

#57

Post by hedora »

I really don’t understand the point of this. It sounds like trying to rebut YouTube whack jobs, except instead of being too unbearably slow to watch (vs read) and quote, there is just an infinite stream of incorrect gibberish.

Correcting other students’ homework makes much more sense to me. Similarly, researching a topic and being graded on the quality of the citations you pick makes much more sense.

Re: Professor writes history essays with ChatGPT and has students correct them

#58

Post by ijustlovemath »

hedora wrote: post #57

I really don’t understand the point of this. It sounds like trying to rebut YouTube whack jobs, except instead of being too unbearably slow to watch (vs read) and quote, there is just an infinite stream of incorrect gibberish. Correcting other students’ homework makes much more sense to me. Similarly, researching a topic and being graded on the quality of the citations you pick makes much more sense.

It's meant to show them they shouldn't be using it for their own essays.

Re: Professor writes history essays with ChatGPT and has students correct them

#59

Post by ripe »

Strom wrote: post #30
bigbacaloa wrote: post #22

AI kicks my ass at chess. Not sure why it won't do better in job interviews too.

Deep Blue wouldn't beat you in chess? Computers being good at chess has been true for 30 years.

… and those chess-playing computers were called AI in those days, so parent is right about that part.

But parent has fallen into the trap of mistaking performance on a narrow task for competence in general, i.e., the third deadly sin [1].

[1] Rodney Brooks, the seven deadly sins of AI predictions: https://www.technologyreview.com/2017/10/06/241837/the-seven...

Re: Professor writes history essays with ChatGPT and has students correct them

#60

Post by arcturus17 »

danuker wrote: post #53
datastoat wrote: post #52

I'm trying something similar with an introductory Algorithms class. After we go through Breadth First Search, there's a practical assignment where students are asked to modify the algorithm to return _all_ shortest paths. Then I ask ChatGPT for its solution, and students try to spot its mistakes. Later, after going through the proof of correctness of Dijkstra's algorithm, I ask ChatGPT for a proof of correctness of i…

It's an arms race. As students cheat with ChatGPT, teachers should incorporate tactics throwing it off, perhaps using ChatGPT themselves. I think what you are doing is great! Good luck going forward!

Can't they feed the code to ChatGPT and ask it to spot the mistakes, though?
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