Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 1001 posts

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

#341

Post by smartmic »

fullstackchris wrote: post #307
smartmic wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

I'm definitely no AI hypster, but saying anything will "never" work over an infinite timeline is a big statement... do you have grounds why some sort of AI system could one day "never" work at evaluating some metric about someone? Seems we have reliable systems already doing that in some areas (facial recognition at airport boarding, for example)

Okay, let me try to be more precise. By "evaluate", I mean using an AI to make predictions about human behavior, either retrospectively (as is the case here in trying to make an accusation of cheating) or prospectively (i.e. automating criminal justice). Even if you could collect all the parameters (features?) that make up a human being, there is the randomness in humans and in nature in general, which simply destroys any ultimate prediction machine. Not to mention the edge cases we wander into. You can try to measure and average a human being, and you will get a certain accuracy well above 50%, but you will never cross the threshold of such high accuracy that a human being should be measured against, especially in life-deciding questions like career decisions or any social matters.

Reliable systems in some areas? - Absolutely, and yes, even facial recognition. I agree, it works very well, but that is a different issue as it does not reveal or try to guess anything about the inner person. There are other problems that arise from the fact that it works so well (surveillance, etc.), but I did not mean that part of the equation.

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

#342

Post by screcth »

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.

Well, you could pick only 10% of the class for one on ones. Pick that 10% randomly or based on your intuition on the authenticity of their work.

That threat may be enough to dissuade students from cheating with AI.

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

#343

Post by iLoveOncall »

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…

Surely you understand how any algorithm (regardless of its nature) that gives the cheater the list of reasons why it spotted cheating will only work for a single iteration before the cheaters adapt, right?

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

#344

Post by tonypace »

razakel wrote: post #250
sersi wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What about tipping off? Banks can't tell you that they've closed your account because of fraud or money laundering.

They should have to tell you that. I can see why it's convenient for them not to, but I believe the larger point is far more important.

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

#345

Post by rileymat2 »

It may be time to step back and ask "Why do students cheat?"

I think the answer is "The Stakes" of getting a poor "grade" that follows you in and ranks you. Eliminate that, and tests become a valuable self assessment of where a student is. Teaches become partners in growth, not adversaries that can cause long term harm with a black mark.

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

#347

Post by Ukv »

renegade-otter wrote: post #314
lwhi wrote: post #178

It is no longer effective to solely use a written essay to measure how deeply a student comprehends a subject. AI is here to stay; new methods should be used to assess student performance. I remember being told at school, that we weren't allowed to use calculators in exams. The line provided by teachers was that we could never rely on having a calculator when we need it most—obviously there's irony associated with ha…

> AI is here to stay Let's not assume a lot right now. OpenAI and other companies are torching through cash like drunken socialist sailors. Will AI be here as a Big Data 2.0 B2B technology? Most likely, but a viable model where students and laypeople have access to it? To be seen. We all mooched off of dumb VC money at one point or another. I acquired a few expensive watches at Fab dot com at 80% off when they were g…

> [...] but a viable model where students and laypeople have access to it? To be seen.

You can run GPT-4-equivalent models locally. Even if all software and hardware advancements immediately halt, models at the current level will remain available.

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

#348

Post by tippytippytango »

Given kids use these tools so much I wonder if there’s a reverse clever hans effect where kids imitate the chatgpt style for legitimate essays.

Either way, this is a giant lawsuit waiting to happen. Schools need to ban these tools asap. They will never work and anyone who takes them seriously… I have a dousing rod that can detect AI available for 29.95

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

#349

Post by immibis »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #227
sqeaky wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than once a week not quite once a day. Rather than trying to diminish something that's completely preventable and abhorrent maybe we could discuss ways to actually prevent it. Because this isn't a problem anywhere else so clearly it's preventable. If AI can be part of a solution here this is a reasonable place to discuss it.

Nobody said we shouldn't try to solve the problem. But the first step is accurately describing the problem to be solved. Something that occurs once a year across the entire country has very different solutions than something which occurs once a week in every county.

More than once a week is regularly. Doesn't matter how wide the geographical area is - ANY school in the USA might be next, so they ALL have to take precautions.

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

#350

Post by croo »

briandear wrote: post #191
immibis wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

“Regularly” is not a particularly accurate word. 50 million K12 students in the U.S. — how many mass murders are “regular?”

I had the same line of thought as I am not following the topic and media hype can make an elephant out of a mouse.

But based on this 2022 statistics USA really has a thing going on with school shootings... more than a hundred per year is way too much. I would definitely consider it "regularly" even if it seems a low number statistically (50 million students === 1 shooter / 500000 student ~?~ 1 shooting / 1000 school).

https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/19982.jpeg

Post reply on HN