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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

#971

Post by musicale »

skhunted wrote: post #491

I’ve been teaching in higher education for 30 years and am soon retiring. I teach math. In every math course there is massive amounts of cheating on everything that is graded that is not proctored in a classroom setting. Locking down browsers and whatnot does not prevent cheating. The only solution is to require face-to-face proctored exams and not allow students to use technology of any kind while taking the test. B…

> In every math course there is massive amounts of cheating on everything that is graded that is not proctored in a classroom setting. Locking down browsers and whatnot does not prevent cheating

This is kind of astonishing to me, because for most of my math and engineering courses cheating on take home work would not have improved my final grade (much less helped me learn the material, which is kind of the point I thought, and often necessary for subsequent courses.)

It seems common for math (and related) courses to grade almost entirely based on in-person, in-class exams. In some courses problem sets are optional (though they can be turned in for evaluation) but are recommended for understanding and practice.

Exams can go poorly, so perhaps having more of them (e.g. frequent quizzes) can help to compensate for having a bad day. Also exams can include basic problems, ones that are very similar to problem sets or worked problems from lectures, etc.

> If we did truly devise a system that prevents cheating we’ll see that a very high percentage of current college students are not ready to be truly college educated.

That sounds like an improvement over the current situation?

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

#972

Post by musicale »

_ea1k wrote: post #624
lumost wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal take, we’ve made the cost of failure to high and cheating too easy. As a student, the only thing the next institution will see is GPA, school, major. Roughly in that order. If the cost of not getting an A is exclusion from future opportunities- then students will reject exclusion by taking easier classes or cheating. As someone who studied physics and came out with a 2.7 GPA due to studying what I wanted…

This really can't be emphasized enough. Universities and the initial hiring process really optimize for a score and not for learning. Those could be, and sometimes are, correlated, but it isn't necessarily the case. Really focusing on stretching yourself necessarily means lower grades. Why is that penalized? TBH, in software engineering a lot of people with lower grades tutor the ones with 4.0 averages. The skillsets…

Oddly enough stretching yourself at one tier of education can help you greatly in the next, as long as the grade penalty isn't so high as to prevent you from advancing.

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

#973

Post by musicale »

koliber wrote: post #911
_ea1k wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really can't be emphasized enough. Universities and the initial hiring process really optimize for a score and not for learning. Those could be, and sometimes are, correlated, but it isn't necessarily the case. Really focusing on stretching yourself necessarily means lower grades. Why is that penalized? TBH, in software engineering a lot of people with lower grades tutor the ones with 4.0 averages. The skillsets…

It is not possible to differentiate someone who stretched themselves and got a lower grade from someone that got a lower grade for more mundane reasons.

I agree. Ideally you might like to be able to evaluate the course syllabus, the grade distribution, the quality of teaching, and the student's background and workload. And perhaps other factors as well. In a reasonable amount of time.

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

#974

Post by musicale »

lacker wrote: post #672
pj_mukh wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question from someone who is regularly tasked with hiring Juniors. What IS a good assessment for entry-level/right out of college positions? -> GPA can be gamed, as laid out. -> Take Home assessments can mostly be gamed, I want to assess how you think, now which tools you use. -> Personality tests favor the outgoing/extroverts -> On-location tests/leet code are a crapshoot. What should be best practice here?…

You have to use on-location tests. Do your best to be fair and get a true evaluation of the candidate's skills. It's not perfect but the alternatives are worse. The other thing you have to do is that you have to be willing to fire the people who are underperforming. It's just a natural consequence of the interview process being imperfect.

I think leetcode tends to be a randomized signal because if you've seen the problem before then it's easy, but if it's an unfamiliar problem (or class of problem) then you're basically being asked to be Knuth/Dijkstra/et al., but faster. Algorithm puzzles are fun, but they bear little resemblance to typical tech work.

I think doing very basic, simple things is a better test. I also like asking candidates to explain something that they already understand well. And for code, I like reading it and also getting an explanation about why things were done the way they were. Code reading also seems to be an important skill that is probably more important than writing.

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

#975

Post by musicale »

withinboredom wrote: post #762
clarebear123 wrote: post #754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What architectures would it not be 04 on?

(older) ARM (aka, big-endian) it will be 01

IIRC several currently used architectures (e.g. ARM, Power, z/Architecture, RISC-V) can all run in big-endian mode.

And in the embedded space I think PowerPC and MIPS are still around.

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

#976

Post by bigfudge »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #729
bigfudge wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amusingly, willingness and capacity to conform to a system you are paying $30k a year for is a pretty good proxy for general intelligence. So maybe it's not that bad?!

It depends on what we think education is for. If the goal is to teach students, it's not so great. If the goal is to signal future employers the intelligence of the student, Maybe that's ok. But maybe the future employers should be paying the tuition instead of the student.

Sorry - it was tongue in cheek, but reflecting what university seems to be for these days rather than what it should be for.

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

#977

Post by Scea91 »

pj_mukh wrote: post #669
lumost wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal take, we’ve made the cost of failure to high and cheating too easy. As a student, the only thing the next institution will see is GPA, school, major. Roughly in that order. If the cost of not getting an A is exclusion from future opportunities- then students will reject exclusion by taking easier classes or cheating. As someone who studied physics and came out with a 2.7 GPA due to studying what I wanted…

Serious question from someone who is regularly tasked with hiring Juniors. What IS a good assessment for entry-level/right out of college positions? -> GPA can be gamed, as laid out. -> Take Home assessments can mostly be gamed, I want to assess how you think, now which tools you use. -> Personality tests favor the outgoing/extroverts -> On-location tests/leet code are a crapshoot. What should be best practice here?…

I really like to talk about their past projects and topics that excite them and they feel comfortable in.

Its not objective in a way that every interview is different but I am very satisfied with the people I hired through this process.

edit: I do this after verifying some baseline competences and credentials.

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

#978

Post by ta1243 »

selimthegrim wrote: post #966
ta1243 wrote: post #959

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what possible purpose?

Basically promising you’re not cheating and your answers are your own.

I would normally expect that to just be a signature.

What happens if you simply print your statement like most people who need to write legibly do for the majority of their life?

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

#979

Post by strogonoff »

concordDance wrote: post #945
strogonoff wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My evaluation: 1. Whoever determined that he does not “deserve” this is wrong. There may be other constraints, but no one gets to frame it as “deserves” when a child wants to learn something. 2. If a teacher is unable to teach Johnny to write a for loop, despite Johnny’s genuine utmost motivation , I would question teacher’s competence or at least fit. 3. Like any mentor, a professor in higher ed may want to choose w…

> If a teacher is unable to teach Johnny to write a for loop, despite Johnny’s genuine utmost motivation, I would question teacher’s competence or at least fit. This relies on everyone's ability to learn being determined solely by motivation rather than innate ability. As someone who has tutored both deprived children and the very bright I can say this unfortunately isn't true, even though the world would be a better…

It is sad, but judging on effort is still the best way for Johnny to discover the most of his potential, wouldn’t you think?

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

#980

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 »

adamc wrote: post #936
BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #880

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we talk about an ethical core, that sort of behavior exists between individuals. People in a family, or people who are friends, hopefully will and typically do adjust their behavior according to some sense of ethics. When we put people into a classroom, however, we’re implicitly putting them into competition with their peers for a limited set of opportunities that determine the extent to which their basic human…

"Deserve" is a subjective and poorly defined concept. They agree to the evaluation criteria when they take the course. They are supposed to actually learn the material. Everything else in your argument is sophistry.

You argued the similarly subjective and poorly defined notion that students who cheat must lack an ethical core, which is why I decided to discuss fuzzy things like ethics rather than the obvious fact that they signed an academic dishonesty agreement. Why is violation of said agreement something that I should view with disdain/why does it say anything about the ethical core of the student?
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