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My university uses prompt injection to catch cheaters

varun.ch

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Re: My university uses prompt injection to catch cheaters

#21

Post by zeroCalories »

volemo wrote: post #11
petterroea wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you in spirit, but the last meta pre-LLM was that exams were bad at measuring student skill and that students felt more fairly treated when their grade was the result of multiple assignments and projects. I think it's a shame we have move away from that

> exams were bad at measuring student skill They are. I have a friend who was significantly more smart and thorough in our studies but often get bad scores on exams not being able to concentrate under the pressure.

I also struggled with exams, but that's because my understanding was often shallow, due to a lack of effort to study and understand the material. I'm very suspicious of people that say they're smart, but can't perform on exams. That said, there's plenty of ways to structure things to avoid this. Have weekly, easy, pass / fail exams that ensure you've read the material at a basic level, or understood some basic concepts. Lab work. Presentations with live grilling from the professor to ensure you understand the topic.

Re: My university uses prompt injection to catch cheaters

#22

Post by jejeje2 »

volemo wrote: post #11
petterroea wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you in spirit, but the last meta pre-LLM was that exams were bad at measuring student skill and that students felt more fairly treated when their grade was the result of multiple assignments and projects. I think it's a shame we have move away from that

> exams were bad at measuring student skill They are. I have a friend who was significantly more smart and thorough in our studies but often get bad scores on exams not being able to concentrate under the pressure.

If you can’t concentrate under pressure then you will not go very far in employment….

Re: My university uses prompt injection to catch cheaters

#23

Post by AlotOfReading »

dpoloncsak wrote: post #18
subscribed wrote: post #5

Good. I wouldn't like cheaters to compete with honest students on the job market. In my kid's school (American high school equivalent) being caught on using LLM in papers is a failed subject. Students must pass all the subjects to finish the school. Some of these subjects won't be taught the next year so effectively they lose year, two, three....

[flagged]

Why wouldn't students be able to learn how to use LLMs afterwards? How does learning to use them via the completely unstructured process of getting output past an overworked teacher out of their depth develop critical skills?

Re: My university uses prompt injection to catch cheaters

#24

Post by volemo »

zeroCalories wrote: post #21
volemo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> exams were bad at measuring student skill They are. I have a friend who was significantly more smart and thorough in our studies but often get bad scores on exams not being able to concentrate under the pressure.

I also struggled with exams, but that's because my understanding was often shallow, due to a lack of effort to study and understand the material. I'm very suspicious of people that say they're smart, but can't perform on exams. That said, there's plenty of ways to structure things to avoid this. Have weekly, easy, pass / fail exams that ensure you've read the material at a basic level, or understood some basic concep…

I don’t think my friend would claim to be smart (and not I’m not talking about myself in third person to sound more convincingly, I have a real las in mind). I say they are. I saw them in a day to day work and they are both more knowledgeable and more productive than I am. It’s being put on the spot, with high stakes and limited time, they had a difficulty with.

> there's plenty of ways to structure things to avoid this

Sure, I was arguing specifically against GGP’s solution, i.e. betting everything on the finals.

Re: My university uses prompt injection to catch cheaters

#25

Post by dpoloncsak »

wildzzz wrote: post #19
dpoloncsak wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It really depends on the field you go into. If you're a writer and you want a job writing things, you go to college to become a better writer and prepare yourself for working in that industry. If the professors just let you turn in AI slop, how does that benefit anyone? You didn't write anything, why are you here paying tuition? And it demonstrates to the industry that if colleges are handing out degrees to writers f…

Writing specifically, I'll concede may need some oversight to prevent LLM use.

In general though, we should be looking at how to re-design assignments to demonstrate an understanding without being a large block of text, atleast imo.

We (Or atleast, my school) started teaching us how to use a calculator in things like Trig and Calc. It's not about 'can you divide correctly to arrive at the correct value of sin' but 'can you differentiate when to use sin vs cos', which I think was the more valuable lesson. But maybe LLMs are so powerful, or so 'do it all', that we just cannot compare it to the calculator (Not in their current iteration, but looking ahead...)

Re: My university uses prompt injection to catch cheaters

#26

Post by volemo »

jejeje2 wrote: post #22
volemo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> exams were bad at measuring student skill They are. I have a friend who was significantly more smart and thorough in our studies but often get bad scores on exams not being able to concentrate under the pressure.

If you can’t concentrate under pressure then you will not go very far in employment….

Huh? Not every job requires this trait, and even though some do, it’s not something nonlinear optics professor ought to evaluate.

Sure, it’s a nice quality to have and I find it useful at times: when it’s “suddenly” the last day to write a proposal, or when someone has to present at a conference. (However, these tasks many other skills besides just the ability to stay calm.) But I can’t agree that it is indispensable for a researcher.

Re: My university uses prompt injection to catch cheaters

#27

Post by dpoloncsak »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #23
dpoloncsak wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Why wouldn't students be able to learn how to use LLMs afterwards? How does learning to use them via the completely unstructured process of getting output past an overworked teacher out of their depth develop critical skills?

> How does learning to use them via the completely unstructured process of getting output past an overworked teacher out of their depth develop critical skills?

Nobody said it did. The point isn't to get it past a teacher. The point is to develop a curriculum that encourages growth with technology as opposed to demonizing it

Re: My university uses prompt injection to catch cheaters

#28

Post by Larrikin »

dpoloncsak wrote: post #27
AlotOfReading wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't students be able to learn how to use LLMs afterwards? How does learning to use them via the completely unstructured process of getting output past an overworked teacher out of their depth develop critical skills?

> How does learning to use them via the completely unstructured process of getting output past an overworked teacher out of their depth develop critical skills? Nobody said it did. The point isn't to get it past a teacher. The point is to develop a curriculum that encourages growth with technology as opposed to demonizing it

Every single actually good student learned information in the school and various skills outside of school. The tech is changing so much currently it would be a waste of time for a teacher to try and plan a year long course around them.

Re: My university uses prompt injection to catch cheaters

#29

Post by ushtaritk421 »

dpoloncsak wrote: post #18
subscribed wrote: post #5

Good. I wouldn't like cheaters to compete with honest students on the job market. In my kid's school (American high school equivalent) being caught on using LLM in papers is a failed subject. Students must pass all the subjects to finish the school. Some of these subjects won't be taught the next year so effectively they lose year, two, three....

[flagged]

Expecting a kid to run a mile in Physical Education class rather than call Uber is not denying technical progress, nor is it hurting their ability to call Uber later when it is appropriate.

Re: My university uses prompt injection to catch cheaters

#30

Post by GroksBarnacles »

dpoloncsak wrote: post #18
subscribed wrote: post #5

Good. I wouldn't like cheaters to compete with honest students on the job market. In my kid's school (American high school equivalent) being caught on using LLM in papers is a failed subject. Students must pass all the subjects to finish the school. Some of these subjects won't be taught the next year so effectively they lose year, two, three....

[flagged]

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