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College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

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Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#151

Post by osigurdson »

Izkata wrote: post #148
terrabitz wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not inherently contradictory, just like using a calculator could be considered cheating depending on the context. If you're just learning basic arithmetic, a calculator is cheating since it shortcuts the path to learning. OTOH in calculus, a calculator is necessary. You still have to have a deep understanding of the concepts and functions to succeed. It's still a new tech so I'm not surprised a lot of teachers h…

A better example might be physics and math classes. I was learned derivatives and integrals at the same time in those two classes, but the math one required we learn how it all works (using limits to understand why the derivative rules work, without using calculators, for example), while in physics we just memorized the rules and were expected to use the calculator.

I always thought they should teach calculus first.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#152

Post by resident423 »

Is there really much point though? I think AI will keep improving, and there will be more and more incentive to use an AI which costs $20/month, instead of a human writer that costs $30/hour. If someone want's an article written, and if people like the AI article as much as the human one, what stops anyone everyone using AI?

The only answer I can think of is that people must believe AI writing will stay below human level for many years, but if so why?

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#153

Post by kcexn »

nsyne wrote: post #55
throwatdem12311 wrote: post #30

When I did my Computer Science degree the vast majority of courses were 50% final, 30% midterm - even programming exams were hand written, proctored by TAs in class or in the gymnasium - assignments/labs/projects were a small part of your grade but if you didn’t do them the likelihood you’d pass the term exams was pretty darn low. We already had AI proof education.

I personally dislike placing a heavy emphasis on exams. Assignments/projects have been consistently the most enjoyable and rewarding parts of the courses I've taken so far in university. It's a shame that they are also way more susceptible to cheating with AI.

The problem with exams is that everyone has a bad experience with a poorly written one. Well-written exams will have questions that test students at different levels of understanding across the whole curriculum.

So a student who only understands the basics should be able to answer most of the easy questions and students who have a deeper understanding can answer the harder ones.

Well-written exams should feel pretty fair and leave students feeling like the result they got is proportional to the effort they put into studying the material (or at least how well they personally felt they understood the material).

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#154

Post by lombasihir »

resident423 wrote: post #152

Is there really much point though? I think AI will keep improving, and there will be more and more incentive to use an AI which costs $20/month, instead of a human writer that costs $30/hour. If someone want's an article written, and if people like the AI article as much as the human one, what stops anyone everyone using AI? The only answer I can think of is that people must believe AI writing will stay below human l…

i dont think that way, ai will became better, but human-taste writing just feels different. like hand-made furniture vs factory-made furniture. they have different class.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#155

Post by ninjahawk1 »

an0malous wrote: post #149
ninjahawk1 wrote: post #122

In one of my classes the approach was the opposite, I’m expected to do Ph.D level work as an undergrad and am expected to use AI. In a different one she just said so long as you say AI was used you’re fine to use it. In the rest of them AI is considered cheating. To say we have discrepancies in the rules in an understatement. No one seems to have the exact answer on how to do it. I personally feel like expecting Ph.D…

> I’m expected to do Ph.D level work as an undergrad and am expected to use AI. Nice idea. What class and what work are you doing then?

For that specific one, it’s more of an independent project analyzing complex systems for 6 credits, I’m gonna be expected to submit a paper to arXiv on the subject with the professor as a co-author (fingers crossed). He said I can use claude code or any AI. I’m required to do X amount of hours per week and then submit a thorough report after about 2 months.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#156

Post by WoodenChair »

antonymoose wrote: post #137
jason_zig wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is evaluation that important? ultimately if you can't do the work you're only cheating yourself in the long run...

You say that but I was a Class of 2013, aka during the massive hiring boom of the teens. I tutored a friend of mine with a Ds get Degrees mentality who eventually graduated and now works an ass-in-seat job for Booz Allen or one of those types. I used to joke about it with another friend, that his diploma ought to include an asterisk and a half dozen other names for how much we ultimately did on his grades take homes.…

I agree with your premise about why accurate evaluation matters, but your post comes across as pretty bitter. Unless you’re at the job with him, you really don’t know that it’s a “I just need to show up” job he has at Booz Allen. Perhaps he has other great traits like a high social or emotional intelligence that make him good at his job beyond whatever was being evaluated on those projects you helped him with.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#157

Post by tehjoker »

nradov wrote: post #144
stingraycharles wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah exactly, I remember having to write Java and C++ by hand in college in the early 2000s. It was also a good test how well you knew the syntax.

Syntax seems like a stupid thing to test in university level courses. That's trade school stuff. And I don't mean that as a criticism of trade schools, they just have a different focus.

Knowledge is built on foundations. Knowing syntax in one language is necessary to be able to do anything practical, which interacts with theory. You build valuable schema of the world by iterative theory and practice.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#158

Post by WoodenChair »

nradov wrote: post #144
stingraycharles wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah exactly, I remember having to write Java and C++ by hand in college in the early 2000s. It was also a good test how well you knew the syntax.

Syntax seems like a stupid thing to test in university level courses. That's trade school stuff. And I don't mean that as a criticism of trade schools, they just have a different focus.

Syntax is not the focus of your testing, but it’s often a pre-requisite to be clearly and accurately speaking the same language. Think not of taking off points for missing a semicolon but instead understanding the difference between the syntax for a method call and a property access. The different syntax conveys different meaning and so we should expect some basic level of accuracy to the language in question. At least that’s how I see it.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#159

Post by ninjahawk1 »

terrabitz wrote: post #129
ninjahawk1 wrote: post #122

In one of my classes the approach was the opposite, I’m expected to do Ph.D level work as an undergrad and am expected to use AI. In a different one she just said so long as you say AI was used you’re fine to use it. In the rest of them AI is considered cheating. To say we have discrepancies in the rules in an understatement. No one seems to have the exact answer on how to do it. I personally feel like expecting Ph.D…

It's not inherently contradictory, just like using a calculator could be considered cheating depending on the context. If you're just learning basic arithmetic, a calculator is cheating since it shortcuts the path to learning. OTOH in calculus, a calculator is necessary. You still have to have a deep understanding of the concepts and functions to succeed. It's still a new tech so I'm not surprised a lot of teachers h…

Exactly, AI is the next calculator. Right now the consensus is that it just does the work for you, in my opinion that says more about us not having the right questions than actual laziness. In a world where the only questions are basic arithmetic, calculators do all the work for you. My opinion is that the future what used to be done by academics will be done by high schoolers and new academics will be producing work at a rate no one could’ve ever predicted.

For example, the professor who’s leading me in this project had a fellowship at a certain university in England and said he exclusively coded using claude code for a month straight, their purpose was to solve a vaccine for a specific disease and by using AI tools such as claude code they’re several months ahead of schedule.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#160

Post by Dylan16807 »

vunderba wrote: post #24
whartung wrote: post #9

What's interesting is that as I understand, folks are using things like Google Docs for papers, and that it's (apparently) straight forward to do analysis on a Google Doc to see, well, the life of the document. How it was typed in, how fast, what was pasted and cut back out. My understanding is that the Google Doc is not a word processing document, it's an event recording of a word processor. So, in theory, you could…

Even Microsoft Word stores revision history inside .docx files, and that’s been used to expose plagiarism. I heard about one case where a student took an existing paper (I believe from a previous year/student) and pasted it into Word. They then edited it just enough to make it look different. However, they didn’t remove the embedded revision history in the .docx file they submitted, so that went about as well as you…

Are you sure about that? I could easily see this happen with a web document link, but for a docx file the change tracking is off by default and pretty obtrusive. Basic metadata would be fine, formatting might be quirky but that's not exactly a smoking gun...
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