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Suspecting AI cheating, Ivy League prof ordered in-person final; scores fell 50%

arstechnica.com

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Re: Suspecting AI cheating, Ivy League prof ordered in-person final; scores fell 50%

#41

Post by cosmic_cheese »

protocolture wrote: post #28
cm2012 wrote: post #2

At-home testing is dead.

Have you never had a home proctored test before? You cant even sneak paper on to your desk, where do you plan to hide the LLM?

Yeah, I’m enrolled in an online degree program and use of AI in exams would be quite difficult.

The proctoring service my school uses requires a special browser with admin permissions and an external webcam with your entire workspace, screen, and face clearly visible (wide angle webcam preferred). Prior to the exam you have to photograph the entirety of your room, and if there’s even an open door that can disqualify you. Only one screen is allowed and smartphones and smart watches are banned. A proctor is watching you and you’re being recorded the whole time. I have no idea how one could slip something like AI use past all this.

Re: Suspecting AI cheating, Ivy League prof ordered in-person final; scores fell 50%

#42

Post by protocolture »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #41
protocolture wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you never had a home proctored test before? You cant even sneak paper on to your desk, where do you plan to hide the LLM?

Yeah, I’m enrolled in an online degree program and use of AI in exams would be quite difficult. The proctoring service my school uses requires a special browser with admin permissions and an external webcam with your entire workspace, screen, and face clearly visible (wide angle webcam preferred). Prior to the exam you have to photograph the entirety of your room, and if there’s even an open door that can disqualify…

Thats my experience + they are listening the whole time. A loud noise from another room disqualified a coworker of mine.

Re: Suspecting AI cheating, Ivy League prof ordered in-person final; scores fell 50%

#43

Post by phist_mcgee »

yamillove wrote: post #12
cowanon77 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure why that’s controversial - I have met many Ivy League students and grads; they are all intelligent, at least in an academic way. The only other common characteristic is that they almost always had some form of privilege. Either rich parents, or adults around them who worked very hard to get them to that level.

If you have privilege, don’t be ashamed. USE IT TO YOUR ADVANTAGE! It’s yours anyway. You don’t owe society anything just because you have privilege. Everyone else, put on a helmet! Welcome to life.

You owe society more than nothing, otherwise you end up with a sick society.

Re: Suspecting AI cheating, Ivy League prof ordered in-person final; scores fell 50%

#44

Post by jimmygrapes »

martythemaniak wrote: post #30
Cider9986 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be good. https://www.baneproctoring.com/

I clicked expecting Bane Proctoring, where Bane monitors your exam and if he catches you cheating...

it would be extremely painful

... I'm sorry I couldn't help it

Re: Suspecting AI cheating, Ivy League prof ordered in-person final; scores fell 50%

#45

Post by iepathos »

The article, the teacher, and the general academic community skips the hard question when it comes to AI and that's whether these exams are testing knowledge that is still worth internalizing in the same way?

Academia has a long history of lagging behind acceptance of new cognitive tools where they claim to want to defend the students, but instead defend the assignments of the past at the expense of the students. Calculators were treated as threats to learning, even though they ultimately freed students to focus on higher-level math and provably improved their abilities across many different studies. Internet sources were dismissed as less legitimate than books, as if “published in an outdated book from the 70s” magically made it more trustworthy than the most scrutinized reference sources online.

It is not clear from the article exactly how much of this course falls into that category, but if the answers can be produced trivially with a prompt and chatgpt, then maybe memorizing that material is no longer the right educational target. Academia desperately needs to redesign itself around AI as a cognitive tool students should be trained to leverage. If a question is trivially answered by a prompt with it, then you need harder questions that actually require students to push beyond that. Simply removing AI from the equation, calling it cheating, and pretending that it isn't an ever-present asset people are expected to leverage in real life is naive and just repeats the mistakes of the past.

Re: Suspecting AI cheating, Ivy League prof ordered in-person final; scores fell 50%

#46

Post by piloto_ciego »

piloto_ciego wrote: post #37
overgard wrote: post #27

This is already a clusterfuck, but it's going to be so much worse in 10 years. We're going to have an entire generation trapped in the gig economy because their education is going to be considered worthless, and even if it wasn't worthless, there won't be enough entry level jobs for anyone to get into. Senior people will age out and our entire society is just going to be hollowed out. And people wonder why I'm an AI…

The thing you're angry at, the thing that you're upset about? It's capitalism, it's the coupling of education with jobs, it's credentialism being overturned by new technology, etc. I think education is incredibly important, but I understand that I'm going to have to retrain myself a little bit. A college degree can no-longer be assumed to be a proxy for having put in the effort to deeply study something. Now what's t…

replying to my own thread here, but this got me thinking, so thanks OP, but...

can anyone here think of some better ways where we could decouple the education process from the work process? To me this seems like the main problem. It seems that we've decided that "get good grades == good employee" collectively. I know I'm a bad employee (which is why I work for myself now but that's another story), but I got great grades in school. I don't know, I just feel like school was rarely about actually learning / growing and was mostly about vocational work most of my time in undergrad, and I wish we could de-couple that some? But maybe I'm naive here...

Re: Suspecting AI cheating, Ivy League prof ordered in-person final; scores fell 50%

#47

Post by phist_mcgee »

danpalmer wrote: post #38
cm2012 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most people, college is a box to check off. And individual classes are even more so.

College is a box to check off because we have lost the ability to support a workforce without college degrees (at least in the US, UK, AU, where I have some experience). Trades are critical but looked down on. Manufacturing is gone (which isn't in itself a bad thing). The service industry doesn't pay a living wage (thankfully it's reasonable here in AU). Apprenticeships don't pay enough. And pretty much all knowledge…

Sounds like you're in AU, I will point out that trades are not looked down on at all in this country. In fact culturally we value chippies and sparkies higher than desk jockeys.

Re: Suspecting AI cheating, Ivy League prof ordered in-person final; scores fell 50%

#48

Post by yamillove »

phist_mcgee wrote: post #43
yamillove wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have privilege, don’t be ashamed. USE IT TO YOUR ADVANTAGE! It’s yours anyway. You don’t owe society anything just because you have privilege. Everyone else, put on a helmet! Welcome to life.

You owe society more than nothing, otherwise you end up with a sick society.

If you had read the whole sentence, you would have found a few other words, which say “just because you have privilege.”

All men are created equal. Civic duties apply equally to everyone. Once people have met their legal obligations (say, paying taxes and obeying the law), any additional generosity is voluntary, not owed, so having more privilege does not automatically create greater moral obligations.

Say, I am beautiful and you are ugly. That’s my privilege. Do I owe more than you? No. It sucks for you. Sorry but that’s life. Stop whining and keep making the best you have with your God-given privileges (maybe you are say, taller or have more money).

Re: Suspecting AI cheating, Ivy League prof ordered in-person final; scores fell 50%

#49

Post by overgard »

piloto_ciego wrote: post #37
overgard wrote: post #27

This is already a clusterfuck, but it's going to be so much worse in 10 years. We're going to have an entire generation trapped in the gig economy because their education is going to be considered worthless, and even if it wasn't worthless, there won't be enough entry level jobs for anyone to get into. Senior people will age out and our entire society is just going to be hollowed out. And people wonder why I'm an AI…

The thing you're angry at, the thing that you're upset about? It's capitalism, it's the coupling of education with jobs, it's credentialism being overturned by new technology, etc. I think education is incredibly important, but I understand that I'm going to have to retrain myself a little bit. A college degree can no-longer be assumed to be a proxy for having put in the effort to deeply study something. Now what's t…

While I think there are a lot of problems created by capitalism right now, I would argue that nothing about the current AI industry is actually capitalist at all. These are companies that are surviving despite absolutely bleeding cash because the ultra-rich have decided that things would be so much more convenient for them if they didn't need to deal with employees anymore. This isn't "well, people are doing this because it's profitable". They're doing it DESPITE it being WILDLY unprofitable, mostly based on a weirdly religious faith that it's just going to work out because they really really want it to.

Recently I saw Alex Karp (Palantir CEO) on one of those market shows (CNBC I think? Something like that) and he was upset at Dario's doom trolling. Why was he upset? Because he was worried that the populist rage towards AI was going to result in a wealth tax! And the thing is he's probably right! The thing these people fear the most, socialism, is the thing they're ironically probably going to make popular in the united states by absolutely trying to bleed the population dry.

Re: Suspecting AI cheating, Ivy League prof ordered in-person final; scores fell 50%

#50

Post by phist_mcgee »

yamillove wrote: post #48
phist_mcgee wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You owe society more than nothing, otherwise you end up with a sick society.

If you had read the whole sentence, you would have found a few other words, which say “just because you have privilege.” All men are created equal. Civic duties apply equally to everyone. Once people have met their legal obligations (say, paying taxes and obeying the law), any additional generosity is voluntary, not owed, so having more privilege does not automatically create greater moral obligations. Say, I am beau…

What an odd world view. Of course the priviliged have greater social obligations, because they are greater benefactors of life. We're all equal under the law but that doesn't mean that those with greater means shouldn't have greater impacts on society.

Meritocracy is often a buzzword of the elite to avoid paying their fair share.

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