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Professor's invisible prompt trap catches 32/35 students cheating with AI

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11–20 of 99 posts

Re: Professor's invisible prompt trap catches 32/35 students cheating with AI

#12
I wonder if any of the three other students did use AI, but removed the Madagascar signal? So many students not proofreading suggests that they just want to make it look like they did the work but don't care about the grade, which is surprising for a midterm.

It's also a little ironic that he's showing all of this while wearing Ray-Ban Metas.

Re: Professor's invisible prompt trap catches 32/35 students cheating with AI

#13

I think there is a vast difference between leveraging a tool and outsourcing your cognitive functions, which is what seemed to happen in this specific case. Are schools failing students? How do you instill a desire to learn? I hope someone smart is trying to solve this because the ramifications on society are bleak. One anecdotal case isn't proof but it follows general trends I've seen across campuses.

The ramifications are bleak if you're destined to become an employee. Students believe that AI can do their work for them, so they shouldn't be surprised if AI gets the job they wanted.

On the other hand, these students are proving that AI is as capable as a student (in their eyes at least) which bodes very well for employers. Limitless numbers of cheap workers.

Re: Professor's invisible prompt trap catches 32/35 students cheating with AI

#15

I think there is a vast difference between leveraging a tool and outsourcing your cognitive functions, which is what seemed to happen in this specific case. Are schools failing students? How do you instill a desire to learn? I hope someone smart is trying to solve this because the ramifications on society are bleak. One anecdotal case isn't proof but it follows general trends I've seen across campuses.

It is too late for the current crop of university students. Most of them should have never graduated middle school. The failure is very deep.

Re: Professor's invisible prompt trap catches 32/35 students cheating with AI

#16
I would say any AI generated output, from a student who didnt notice Madagascar in their prompt, would have been extremely easy to detect based on basic llmisms anyway. But I suppose it's much easier to just search for "Madagascar".

Also, the professor should see the history of the student writing in the document editor.

I write everything using AI and nobody has detected it because I know how to remove llmisms and prompt effectively.

Here's an article on llmisms from people on the front lines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writing

Re: Professor's invisible prompt trap catches 32/35 students cheating with AI

#17
post #13

I think there is a vast difference between leveraging a tool and outsourcing your cognitive functions, which is what seemed to happen in this specific case. Are schools failing students? How do you instill a desire to learn? I hope someone smart is trying to solve this because the ramifications on society are bleak. One anecdotal case isn't proof but it follows general trends I've seen across campuses.

The ramifications are bleak if you're destined to become an employee . Students believe that AI can do their work for them, so they shouldn't be surprised if AI gets the job they wanted. On the other hand, these students are proving that AI is as capable as a student (in their eyes at least) which bodes very well for employers. Limitless numbers of cheap workers.

> these students are proving that AI is as capable as a student (in their eyes at least) which bodes very well for employers. Limitless numbers of cheap workers.

Limitless numbers of cheap workers are great for employers when they have them. Not as great when everyone has them.

Who is going to pay for the goods or services provided by your limitless number of cheap artificial workers when everyone else has also replaced their natural consumer human employees with their own cheap artificial workers?

Re: Professor's invisible prompt trap catches 32/35 students cheating with AI

#18
post #4

I fear for this generation of folks that are losing the ability to think. They have a very sad existence ahead.

I try to be optimistic but then I talk with friends who are teachers and it is very grim. I'm sure the students will eventually learn the lesson but only after they have failed a lot in future. It really is taking the easy short term gains for hard long term punishments.

But look at many parts of the world and you see that it isn't unique.

I saw it from some Cooker-anti Vax folks the saying "You future doctor is currently using ChatGPT so you had better get your health in order now." And on that one point I had to agree with them. A weird future awaits.

Re: Professor's invisible prompt trap catches 32/35 students cheating with AI

#19
post #4

I fear for this generation of folks that are losing the ability to think. They have a very sad existence ahead.

Unfortunately, I think it's just a continuation of a trend that already started pre-covid. I was surprised that most juniors and interns I worked with seemed to lack the ability to "self-help" and Google basic questions they had. I think it reflects a schooling system in the US that doesn't teach any real critical thinking - just studying until you "know" the answer, without actually teaching students the intuition of how to get there. The result is that when they encounter something not even novel, but slightly unfamiliar they don't even make an attempt to start or immediately tunnel vision down the wrong path without taking a first step back. Funnily, the latter approach feels similar to how LLMs perform on truly novel problems, too.

Re: Professor's invisible prompt trap catches 32/35 students cheating with AI

#20
post #13

I think there is a vast difference between leveraging a tool and outsourcing your cognitive functions, which is what seemed to happen in this specific case. Are schools failing students? How do you instill a desire to learn? I hope someone smart is trying to solve this because the ramifications on society are bleak. One anecdotal case isn't proof but it follows general trends I've seen across campuses.

The ramifications are bleak if you're destined to become an employee . Students believe that AI can do their work for them, so they shouldn't be surprised if AI gets the job they wanted. On the other hand, these students are proving that AI is as capable as a student (in their eyes at least) which bodes very well for employers. Limitless numbers of cheap workers.

Students usually don't have adequate experience or judgement to make good employees. AI being good at satisfying a professor doesn't mean AI is good enough to satisfy an employer.

So whether it bodes well or not depends upon whether that gap exists or not. It's probably job specific.

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