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Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

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Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#291

Post by lotsofpulp »

lwhi wrote: post #267
pjc50 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I only hope that we get to decide how society responds to that change together .. rather than have it forced upon us. That basically never happens and the outcome is the result of some sort of struggle. Usually just a peaceful one in the courts and legislatures and markets, but a struggle nonetheless. > new methods should be used to assess student performance. Such as? We need an answer now because students are bei…

> Personally I think all this is unpredictable and destabilizing. I completely agree, but then again it seems to me that society also functions according to many norms that were established due to historical context; and could / should be challenged and replaced. Our education system was based on needs of the industrial revolution. Ditto, the structure of our working week. My bet: We will see our working / waking liv…

>Fundamental questions like 'why do we work', 'what do we need' and 'what do we want' will be necessarily brought to the fore.

All the low paid, physically laborious work is not affected by AI, so there will be plenty of work, especially with aging populations around the world.

The question is will it be worth doing (can the recipients of the work pay enough) without being able to provide the dream of being able to obtain a desk job for one’s self or their children.

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#292

Post by smartmic »

mrweasel wrote: post #184

The part that annoys me is that students apparently have no right to be told why the AI flagged their work. For any process where an computer is allowed to judge people, where should be a rule in place that demands that the algorithm be able explains EXACTLY why it flagged this person. Now this would effectively kill off the current AI powered solution, because they have no way of explaining, or even understanding, w…

I agree with you, but I would go further and turn the tables. An AI should simply not be allowed to evaluate people, in any context whatsoever. For the simple reason that it has been proven not to work (and will also never).

Anyone interested to learn more about it, I recommend the recent book "AI Snake Oil" from Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor [1]. It is a critical but nuanced book and helps to see the whole AI hype a little more clearly.

[1] https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691249131/ai....

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#293

Post by lupusreal »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #277
michaelt wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Such as? We need an answer now because students are being assessed now. Two decades ago, when I was in engineering school, grades were 90% based on in-person, proctored, handwritten exams. So assignments had enough weight to be worth completing, but little enough that if someone cheated, it didn't really matter as the exam was the deciding factor. > Return to the old "viva voce" exam? Still used for PhDs. But that…

Oh yes. When I'm teaching a class of 200 students it's totally plausible that we're going to do 10 15 minute one on one conversations with every student. Because that's only 20 days non stop with no sleep. We would need to increase the amount of teaching staff by well over 10x to do this. The costs would be astronomical.

When they're paying 27k maybe they deserve a lower student to instructor ratio. And for that matter, a lower administration to student ratio. The whole system is very inefficient, there's a lot of room for improvement.

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#294

Post by Loughla »

lwhi wrote: post #267
pjc50 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I only hope that we get to decide how society responds to that change together .. rather than have it forced upon us. That basically never happens and the outcome is the result of some sort of struggle. Usually just a peaceful one in the courts and legislatures and markets, but a struggle nonetheless. > new methods should be used to assess student performance. Such as? We need an answer now because students are bei…

> Personally I think all this is unpredictable and destabilizing. I completely agree, but then again it seems to me that society also functions according to many norms that were established due to historical context; and could / should be challenged and replaced. Our education system was based on needs of the industrial revolution. Ditto, the structure of our working week. My bet: We will see our working / waking liv…

I think you're far more optimistic than I am.

I think that we'll see fundamental changes, but it will be based on cheaper consumer goods because all of the back end white collar labor that adds costs to them will be (for all intents and purposes) free.

But we will see the absolute destruction of the middle class. This will be the death blow. The work week will change, but only because even more people will work multiple part time jobs. We'll think about what we need, but only because we'll have cheap consumer goods, but no ability to prepare for the future.

I think it's bleak. Source: most of human history. We're not, as a species, naturally altruistic. We're competitive and selfish.

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#295

Post by lotsofpulp »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #277
michaelt wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Such as? We need an answer now because students are being assessed now. Two decades ago, when I was in engineering school, grades were 90% based on in-person, proctored, handwritten exams. So assignments had enough weight to be worth completing, but little enough that if someone cheated, it didn't really matter as the exam was the deciding factor. > Return to the old "viva voce" exam? Still used for PhDs. But that…

Oh yes. When I'm teaching a class of 200 students it's totally plausible that we're going to do 10 15 minute one on one conversations with every student. Because that's only 20 days non stop with no sleep. We would need to increase the amount of teaching staff by well over 10x to do this. The costs would be astronomical.

>The costs would be astronomical.

Countries have no problem spending astronomical amounts on old people. If the country wants productive young people, the country will find a way.

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#296

Post by Iulioh »

red_admiral wrote: post #286
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The staff soon realised what garbage these tools are so if a student accused of plagiarism decided to argue back then the accusation would be quietly dropped. I ask myself when the time comes that some student will accuse the stuff of libel or slander becuase of false AI plagiarism accusations.

Or of racism. There was a thing during the pandemic where automated proctoring tools couldn't cope with people of darker skin than they were trained on; I imagine the first properly verified and scientifically valid examples of AI-detection racism will be found soon.

The "dark skin problem" is mostly the camera sensors, not only the training...

Low light scenarios are just a thing, you would need more expensive hardware do deal with it.

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#297

Post by tipsytoad »

I don’t think this hits at the heart of the issue? Even if we can catch AI text with 100% accuracy, any halfway decent student can rewrite it from scratch using o1s ideas in lieu of actually learning.

This is waay more common and just impossible to catch. The only students caught here are those that put no effort in at all

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#298

Post by dxuh »

lionkor wrote: post #74
newZWhoDis wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The education system in the US is broadly staffed by the dumbest people from every walk of life. If they could make it elsewhere, they would. I don’t expect this to be a popular take here, and most replies will be NAXALT fallacies, but in aggregate it’s the truth. Sorry, your retired CEO physics teacher who you loved was not a representative sample.

In Germany, you have to do the equivalent of a master's degree (and then a bunch) to teach in normal public schools

And yet a staggering percentage of them are incompetent (both in their subject and as educators generally).

"and then a bunch" is somewhat misleading. They in fact take easier and fewer classes in the subjects that they are studying for, but they have to take extra classes on education, which afaik are not that hard to pass. Getting a "Lehramt" degree is much easier than getting the regular degree in a subject, which is why many people that are simply not good enough for the real thing do it.

Also we have a teacher shortage and more and more teachers are not in fact people that received an education you usually have to get as a teacher, but are just regular people with either a degree in the subject they are teaching or a degree in almost anything (depends on how desperate the schools are and what subjects they are hiring for).

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#299

Post by tuetuopay »

sersi wrote: post #228
mrweasel wrote: post #184

The part that annoys me is that students apparently have no right to be told why the AI flagged their work. For any process where an computer is allowed to judge people, where should be a rule in place that demands that the algorithm be able explains EXACTLY why it flagged this person. Now this would effectively kill off the current AI powered solution, because they have no way of explaining, or even understanding, w…

It's a similar problem to people being banned from Google (insert big company name) because of an automated fraud detection system that doesn't give any reason behind the ban. I also thing that there should be laws requiring a clear explanation whenever that happens.

while it is infuriating, it's common for every place where fraud is an issue. if the company gave feedback, it would open the door to probing and know what is being watched or not. same reason as why a bank will not tell you why you got kicked off.

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#300

Post by kubb »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #277
michaelt wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Such as? We need an answer now because students are being assessed now. Two decades ago, when I was in engineering school, grades were 90% based on in-person, proctored, handwritten exams. So assignments had enough weight to be worth completing, but little enough that if someone cheated, it didn't really matter as the exam was the deciding factor. > Return to the old "viva voce" exam? Still used for PhDs. But that…

Oh yes. When I'm teaching a class of 200 students it's totally plausible that we're going to do 10 15 minute one on one conversations with every student. Because that's only 20 days non stop with no sleep. We would need to increase the amount of teaching staff by well over 10x to do this. The costs would be astronomical.

But you can read 200 essays? At this point you can be replaced with AI, you’re not adding any value anymore.
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