"You have a 27% 'AI' issue in here" • Hacker News Board

Re: "You have a 27% 'AI' issue in here"

#131

Post by gweinberg » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 7:48 PM UTC

wccrawford wrote: post #16

When I was in college, they were going to put carpet in the science labs, and a few of us thought it was a really stupid, dangerous idea. We started a petition and asked for signatures at the on-campus cafe. After a few days, the administrators asked us into their office for a chat. They asked us stupid questions and tried to talk us out of our petition. When it didn't work, they eventually caved and didn't do the ca…

Who thought carpet was a good idea? Obviously not the professors, or anybody who new anything about chemistry labs.

Re: "You have a 27% 'AI' issue in here"

#132

Post by sho_hn » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 7:49 PM UTC

slaymaker1907 wrote: post #121

HDThoreaun wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt oral examinations come back in general. The undergrad model relys on massive classes, I don’t see how you can do oral exams in those 300 person classes without massive cheating as the first students tell everyone else what to expect.

You're right about oral examinations, but written _proctored_ exams would also solve a lot of these problems, particularly if you require it to be handwritten. Having take home essays be handwritten would also help deter using AI by making it much more inconvenient to use compared to just doing the assignment in the first place.

And these days, we can even rely on AI to parse the illegible handwriting!

Re: "You have a 27% 'AI' issue in here"

#133

Post by csours » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 7:49 PM UTC

It feels more and more like we need to rethink what scoring schoolwork means.

Worksheets and exams can show how familiar you are with the material, or they can be gamed or useless in some other way. But the best they can ever do is show familiarity.

What I really want as a consumer of someone's grade or academic history is how well they WORK in the subject area, along with how well they work with other people, not just a score that may correlate with regurgitation of facts.

I feel cheated by my school years, because I was led to believe that regurgitation of facts is very important. I also feel like this previous comment will be very emotional for some people.

Re: "You have a 27% 'AI' issue in here"

#134

Post by fiftyfifty » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 7:50 PM UTC

HDThoreaun wrote: post #4

gustavus wrote: post #3

AI Detection services are the oiliest of snake oils. Seems like education is going to need to change drastically in the next few years. Maybe we'll go all the way back to oral examinations again.

I doubt oral examinations come back in general. The undergrad model relys on massive classes, I don’t see how you can do oral exams in those 300 person classes without massive cheating as the first students tell everyone else what to expect.

Unfortunately the tried-and-true multiple choice exam complete with Scantron answer sheets remains fairly resistant to cheating with AI and is fully scalable to classes of any size. The only hope for these poor students is that AI can help their professors write better test questions.

Re: "You have a 27% 'AI' issue in here"

#135

Post by bo1024 » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 7:50 PM UTC

ineptech wrote: post #19

HDThoreaun wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt oral examinations come back in general. The undergrad model relys on massive classes, I don’t see how you can do oral exams in those 300 person classes without massive cheating as the first students tell everyone else what to expect.

Is there any value to those lectures, nowadays? I can see a PhD lecture on the fundamentals of virtually any academic topic, for free and at my leisure, on youtube and similar sites. Waking up at 8am to attend an in-person Geology 117 lecture with 300 other freshmen is probably as outdated as a fax machine. Perhaps the next step is, education that isn't based on personal instruction isn't rare enough to be worth payi…

Lots of people pay to go in to their weekly workout class where they just do exercises they already know how to do at home.

A well designed class session can be (can be) similar in that it provides a space and guidance for you to do 60 minutes of improving your brain, that let's be honest, you would otherwise half-ass at home. (Of course, the classroom is only part of what you're paying for, there are also assignments, feedback, etc.)

Re: "You have a 27% 'AI' issue in here"

#136

Post by mistercheph » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 7:52 PM UTC

nicbou wrote: post #111

HDThoreaun wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt oral examinations come back in general. The undergrad model relys on massive classes, I don’t see how you can do oral exams in those 300 person classes without massive cheating as the first students tell everyone else what to expect.

One thing I don't understand is that despite automating more and more of the work away, we seem to have fewer and fewer humans available for anything that's left. I have to scan my own groceries, I can't ever talk to an actual human at any business, I order my food from a machine. Where is everyone?

Didn't you know? Everyone is engaged. What did you think the point of all those engagement metrics were? To get everybody engaged. I like it better like this, before, almost no one was engaged.

Re: "You have a 27% 'AI' issue in here"

#137

Post by neilv » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 7:53 PM UTC

garciasn wrote: post #9

I am an Eagle Scout and was awarded it in 1995. As part of that process, I had to write up a detailed document outlining my project including how it was conceived, the work, and the outcome. It was rejected on my initial submission because the reviewers felt I it wasn’t written by a sophomore in HS. My parents rewrote the entire thing in what they described as “baby talk” and it was then accepted. The irony is not lo…

> I am an Eagle Scout [...] I hate the world we live in.

Isn't there a merit badge or something in Optimistic Can-Do American Spirit? :)

> My parents rewrote the entire thing in what they described as “baby talk” and it was then accepted. The irony is not lost on me to this day.

If you could do it over, would you let yourself be pressured into ironically submitting something that your parents wrote?

Also, do you think whomever rejected your initial writeup did so because they didn't think you did it yourself? Or more like they thought you did it, but they wanted a more stereotypical youth style, maybe because they thought it was more the intent of the exercise? Or maybe for optics reasons, so that it looked like the image people have of a Scout, when upper officials and donors read it?

Re: "You have a 27% 'AI' issue in here"

#138

Post by Tijdreiziger » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 7:53 PM UTC

specproc wrote: post #27

HDThoreaun wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt oral examinations come back in general. The undergrad model relys on massive classes, I don’t see how you can do oral exams in those 300 person classes without massive cheating as the first students tell everyone else what to expect.

I'm assuming this is America? 300 person classes is insane, particular how much debt's involved. I've studied in the UK and EU, and I don't think I've ever been in a class larger than 40.

I have a Dutch CS degree, we had about 200 new freshmen every year. 40 seems excessively low for popular degrees.

Re: "You have a 27% 'AI' issue in here"

#139

Post by saulpw » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 7:54 PM UTC

tracerbulletx wrote: post #113

This kind of thing infuriates me so much. Not only are the detectors not accurate, but the damned thing gave it a 27% score that it was written by an AI which means it actually predicted it WASN'T written as AI and this teacher is threatening their success over that. It's absolutely absurd.

Right?! What's the maximum acceptable level of AI-ness, anyway? If I have an AI proofread my paper and suggest a few alternative turns of phrase which sound better to my ear but earn me a 7% AI score, is that okay?

Re: "You have a 27% 'AI' issue in here"

#140

Post by lozenge » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 7:54 PM UTC

garciasn wrote: post #81

CoastalCoder wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I should have used the correct org terms. But, as the parent of an Eagle scout, I think my point still stands. Either they can, or can't, trust the Eagle to be honest. IMHO, that trust should be a necessary condition for awarding Eagle. And if the council isn't capable of making that call, then they're perhaps unqualified for deciding whether or not to award Eagle rank. (I realize my position is a bit simplist…

The council-level Eagle Board of Reviewers likely didn't know the individual scouts and were simply applying their individual knowledge about the content reviewed compared to the whole and made, in this case, poor assumptions about the quality of writing they should expect. As it relates to academia today, this is now happening at a larger scale with folks lacking more trust, not having to think critically about the…

But, they don't have any knowledge. They don't know how many kids got parents' help and weren't caught, or how many of the kids they "caught" really did know how to write at that level.