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Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

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Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#471

Post by cyberax »

walrus01 wrote: post #80
recursivedoubts wrote: post #57

In the AI era, tests are going to have to be in person and hand written. I have written an article on how I have adjusted my classes to the situation: https://htmx.org/essays/universities-and-ai/ Ironically, I think the AI era may make university degrees a better signal of the intellectual abilities of students due to the presence of pre-computer infrastructure like large lecture halls, industrial-scale copiers, etc.

> In the AI era, tests are going to have to be in person and hand written. Forcing hand written should really not be necessary. It would be very cheap in terms of old computing hardware to set up a test room with old desktop PCs that have wired only NICs (with a network connection that goes to a switch in the same room with no uplink, connected to a decent size laser printer only), running something like lubuntu and…

Why? If a person can't hand-write an essay for an exam, then they're under-educated.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#472

Post by kaladin-jasnah »

sureglymop wrote: post #460
recursivedoubts wrote: post #57

In the AI era, tests are going to have to be in person and hand written. I have written an article on how I have adjusted my classes to the situation: https://htmx.org/essays/universities-and-ai/ Ironically, I think the AI era may make university degrees a better signal of the intellectual abilities of students due to the presence of pre-computer infrastructure like large lecture halls, industrial-scale copiers, etc.

As a student, I have no issue doing oral exams or written exams without notes. I mean I'm there to learn and out of curiosity so I like that challenge... I truly don't understand how people can sign up for a degree and then have to cheat? Must feel torturous to endure a class you're not even interested in.

Some of this is sort of a tangent, but:

When I was a student (and a student TA), what I heard or saw was that students were in CS for money, or their parents forced them to study it. Both of these things created some sort of extrinsic motivation that leads to cheating. In some cases (eg. in my high school) I heard parents would threaten to beat their children if they did not do well in their classes. So maybe that pressure continues in college. And for some, they just want an easy 6 figure job and are willing to take shortcuts. Students I know (some honest, some not) have mentioned they cheat on CS interviews or lie on their resume.

Additionally, I heard that multitides of parents would threaten to withhold tuition if their child failed a class. since the university is not well off, they acquiesce and make classes easier for students who aren't interested.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#473

Post by cyberax »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #334
throwaway152321 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would struggle to do it by hand. If you did it before then, barring physical limitations which have occurred since then, you would struggle for a short while and then you would be fine. I also did coursework purely on paper, got out of practice, and then once my kids were in school got back into the habit of handwriting. I can even write cursive again. Cursive makes it much easier on the hand and wrist. There's a…

> Cursive makes it much easier on the hand and wrist. For righties.

You can write cursive left-handed just fine, slanting letters the other way helps.

I'm right-handed, but I had to learn left-handed cursive at school when I spent 5 months with a cast on my right hand.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#474

Post by aabajian »

The last take-home test I did was for EE364a: Convex Optimization. It was a 24 hour test, and I had a cold. I booked a hotel room as my apartment didn't have air conditioning. It was brutal. I got most of the programming questions correct, but only a few of the proofs. The average of the class on this test (and most every other assignment) was 80%+. I got an A- overall in that class.

Perhaps this class isn't too hard for Stanford students, but I have to wonder about cheating when the averages on nearly every single assignment is that high. One clue was office-hours: Whenever I dropped by office hours, there was always a line (didn't matter the class). I quickly learned that TAs would often drop a hint that would make particularly hard problems easy to complete. It provided an unfair advantage to students who could attend office hours.

It also reminds me of the huge scam of cheating on the USMLE amongst Nepali medical students: https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/features/113627

I've met many wonderful international medical graduates. Many have shockingly high USMLE scores. It is true that there's no time limit on their preparation (U.S. students have under 2 years to prepare during medical school, international students may wait years after graduation before taking the exam). Before that scandal, I never would've thought someone could cheat on the USMLE. Prometric test centers are crazy locked-down. But that's not how they did it. They did the long-game. Prior test takers would remember a handful of questions and just add them to a secret database. After many years, that database contained nearly every question on the exam. Test takers would work extremely hard - memorizing every single question. The reward of a U.S. residency is life-changing, I get why cheating was(is?) so rampant.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#475

Post by cyberax »

encomiast wrote: post #140
customguy wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Forcing hand written should really not be necessary. I do think it's necessary. And I felt unsure at first of how extremely strong I feel about this -- I think everybody should be able to write cursive, and even doctors should be able to write legibly, which ALL of them could learn in one single day, an afternoon, if they had to -- but then I did a simple search for "the benefits of writing by hand studies" and now…

> I think everybody should be able to write cursive As someone who has hated both reading and writing cursive since middle school, I'm curious what is significant about cursive specifically?

There are studies showing that cursive is better for some purposes: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.... But the results are quite weak.

What's really important is handwriting itself. Block letters are honestly fine.

Writing in a good cursive (like the Spencerian script) is a bit faster and much easier on your hands, as you don't have to lift the pen as often. But that matters only when you need to write pages and pages of text.

My native language is Russian, and in Russian schools cursive was mandatory. Writing in block letters was seen as a sign of illiteracy.

I started learning English as a foreign language, and we didn't bother with cursive. So I kept writing in block letters for quite a while. I then started learning German, and our teacher taught us German cursive handwriting. I'm now using it for English as well :)

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#476

Post by bloqs »

Arainach wrote: post #224
cataphract wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "standard writing"? Isn't cursive the standard you're taught and then everyone writes however they want?

No. Most people handwrite most things in print lettering, not cursive. I'm nearly 40 and no one in my life writes anything other than their name (signature) in cursive ever.

This is not true outside of the United States

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#477

Post by supertroop »

QuadmasterXLII wrote: post #96
walrus01 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the AI era, tests are going to have to be in person and hand written. Forcing hand written should really not be necessary. It would be very cheap in terms of old computing hardware to set up a test room with old desktop PCs that have wired only NICs (with a network connection that goes to a switch in the same room with no uplink, connected to a decent size laser printer only), running something like lubuntu and…

I’m 30 and “we can’t do tests in paper” seems _insane_. Just how metastatic has ed tech been in what, 9 years since my undergrad?

I’m 57. It is insane to hear this bullshit.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#478

Post by tgv »

cherryteastain wrote: post #37

His research is in Game Theory. He should have realized that, in a situation where all competitors are (possibly) using LLMs, the game theoretic optimal choice is to use LLMs.

I think you're missing the fact that everyone knows. He just got reliable data from a natural experiment, which makes the chancellor can't just look away any longer.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#479

Post by sixtram »

aabajian wrote: post #474

The last take-home test I did was for EE364a: Convex Optimization. It was a 24 hour test, and I had a cold. I booked a hotel room as my apartment didn't have air conditioning. It was brutal. I got most of the programming questions correct, but only a few of the proofs. The average of the class on this test (and most every other assignment) was 80%+. I got an A- overall in that class. Perhaps this class isn't too hard…

Is it really cheating if you work hard and memorize all the questions? That's basically learning.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#480

Post by madaxe_again »

snickerbockers wrote: post #439
recursivedoubts wrote: post #57

In the AI era, tests are going to have to be in person and hand written. I have written an article on how I have adjusted my classes to the situation: https://htmx.org/essays/universities-and-ai/ Ironically, I think the AI era may make university degrees a better signal of the intellectual abilities of students due to the presence of pre-computer infrastructure like large lecture halls, industrial-scale copiers, etc.

Wait, is this not how things are now? Do students do exams at home now? I guess it has been 14 years since I graduated but I didnt expect it to change that much.

Students do exams at home with an answer key. It isn’t possible to get a mark lower than 80, as this is emotionally damaging. If you require assistance a professor will do the exam for you.

Back in my day we’d sit down ‘t muddy corpse pit having questions screamed at us by ‘t dragon who were also ‘t drill instructor. Get one wrong, and that was that, fricassé.

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