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As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

voiceofsandiego.org

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Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#51

Post by FrustratedMonky »

philipallstar wrote: post #43
gcanyon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving student aid beyond just free classes enables students who would otherwise need to spend time working to support themselves to instead attend school to get a better life. Generally that's considered a good thing, not worthy of the disdain you're displaying.

This is the first-order, emotional reaction, yes, but policy should be made based on its full effects, not just its sales pitch's popularity with first-order-emoting voters.

"Giving out student aid for online classes is just ridiculous."

This is also a sales pitch, playing to the far-right. (virtue signaling)

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#52

Post by pjc50 »

mnky9800n wrote: post #3

Stop offering online classes and expect students to show up in person. Online education sucks, everyone knows this. Everyone knows that they are making some kind of compromise when teaching or taking an online course. And if people are too poor to drive themselves to college or have to work too much or whatever else, then the state should provide opportunities for them so that they can continue their education. Stop…

Remote education has a long and storied history from before the Internet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_University

However I believe they do require you to show up for _exams_. Online proctoring is a miserable disaster, especially in the AI era, so I think for credentials it's unfortunately necessary to have in-person exams. (edit: checked and they switched to online during COVID, unsuprisingly, but are considering switching back)

The ease of financial fraud is a separate issue. In the US I suspect that's linked to widespread identity fraud.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#53

Post by FrustratedMonky »

skeeks wrote: post #45

Isn't the solution really easy? Make the students show up on the first day in-person, compare.with ID and take a photo.

Yeah, the discussion has devolved into "why are we paying kids to go to school, let them eat dirt like I did growing up".

When really the discussion should be around how bots have become good enough to pass as students. And what can we do about verification.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#54

Post by stikit »

HamsterDan wrote: post #22

The author tried really hard to dance around the real problem here: California is apparently paying students to attend online community college. If attending these classes was even just free, this wouldn't be a problem. Giving out student aid for online classes is just ridiculous.

No such thing as free education. Just subsidized education. Costs would be pushed entirely to tax payers, many of whom have never attended college themselves. Demand, costs, taxes and state deficits would increase. The incentive for fraud would be pushed up one level to the administration.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#55

Post by tstrimple »

crazygringo wrote: post #42
gcanyon wrote: post #31

This is an example of what I've been thinking about/warning about for several years now: we are entering a post-truth era, where there is increasingly no way to know what is real and what is not. When I've thought about it, this scenario never occurred to me, but it's a perfect example: we're going to be increasingly unable to know what is "true" in a million different ways, and people are going to exploit that in ev…

We've been in a post-truth era for all of human history, since the first hunter-gatherer told a lie to take advantage of someone else. Which is why we evolved to have exquisite bullshit detectors. They're not perfect, but they're pretty decent. The answer around what is real and not is the same as it ever was -- does information come from a respected, generally trustworthy source or not? Does it come from a source th…

> Which is why we evolved to have exquisite bullshit detectors.

The number of MAGA voters really strains the credibility of this one.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#56

Post by philipallstar »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #51
philipallstar wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first-order, emotional reaction, yes, but policy should be made based on its full effects, not just its sales pitch's popularity with first-order-emoting voters.

"Giving out student aid for online classes is just ridiculous." This is also a sales pitch, playing to the far-right. (virtue signaling)

You think virtue signalling is playing to the far right? Care to define... any of your terms?

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#57

Post by pyfon »

Loughla wrote: post #21
pyfon wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should be able to sue. Basic human rights.

Should have filed with the office of disability services (or access services or whatever they call it) for accommodations. Without that there's no lawsuit.

Pregnancy is a protected class.

Edit: not sure about Germany

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#58

Post by philipallstar »

intended wrote: post #48
philipallstar wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first-order, emotional reaction, yes, but policy should be made based on its full effects, not just its sales pitch's popularity with first-order-emoting voters.

The second order effects of cheap education are immense, ranging from longer life span, better health, stronger economies, amongst just a few. The matter at hand, specifically, is one about how our ability to verify is overwhelmed by our ability to generate content. This is playing out with recruitment, bug reports, complaint forms - and going all the way up to sophisticated fraud.

It's not cheap education. What is the point in deliberately changing the topic? It's about paying people to consume free education.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#59

Post by YeahThisIsMe »

HamsterDan wrote: post #22

The author tried really hard to dance around the real problem here: California is apparently paying students to attend online community college. If attending these classes was even just free, this wouldn't be a problem. Giving out student aid for online classes is just ridiculous.

Just as ridiculous as paying people for remote work.

It's just not reasonable when they're not even traveling to the office.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#60

Post by dheatov »

netsharc wrote: post #49

So is the journalist (and/or faculty) misusing the term "bot" to refer to real humans doing fraud? I find it annoying that words get redefined this way. Especially as it feels like it's the opposite meaning.

Seems like the fake students are automation scripts written to mimic human interaction in online class, pretty much the common definition of "bot"? For now, all bot is still in someway human-operated anyway.
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