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Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

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Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#541

Post by nostrademons »

skhunted wrote: post #491

I’ve been teaching in higher education for 30 years and am soon retiring. I teach math. In every math course there is massive amounts of cheating on everything that is graded that is not proctored in a classroom setting. Locking down browsers and whatnot does not prevent cheating. The only solution is to require face-to-face proctored exams and not allow students to use technology of any kind while taking the test. B…

The solution, clearly, is a world where those who actually learned the math can use it to cheat the people who didn't.

...which is what we have today, where the most lucrative industries for people with good math skills are finance (= cheating dumb people out of their retirement), advertising (= cheating dumb people out of their consumer dollars), and data-driven propaganda (= cheating dumb people out of their votes).

/dystopia

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#542

Post by greentxt »

skhunted wrote: post #524
SkyBelow wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If we did truly devise a system that prevents cheating we’ll see that a very high percentage of current college students are not ready to be truly college educated. Isn't it to either do that now, or to lose the signaling value of college degrees as indicating knowledge.

Yes. But people now teaching at higher education institutions need their classes to fill. That means we need to treat our students as if they are our customers. We must please the customer. In years past the attitude was that society at large was our client. Today the student is our client.

The student is the one paying your salary so that would be expected though, right? Where the students get the money from in the first place is the issue imo. Perverted markets do perverse things.

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#543

Post by willy_k »

bearjaws wrote: post #516
fuzzy_biscuit wrote: post #395

If AI detection cannot be 100% accurate, I do not believe it is an appropriate solution for judging the futures of millions of students and young people. Time to move on. Either from the tech or from the essay format. In either case, we need to change our standards around mastery of subject matter.

Plagiarism detectors aren't 100% accurate either, and we have to use those as well. Institutions have to enforce rules around these things, if they do not within 10 years their degrees will be pointless. It's what happens when you believe someone to have cheated that matters. If it's not blatant cheating, then you cannot punish them for it. These tools exist to catch only the worst offenders.

Plagiarism checkers are much more interpretable.

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#544

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

bonoboTP wrote: post #527
skhunted wrote: post #491

I’ve been teaching in higher education for 30 years and am soon retiring. I teach math. In every math course there is massive amounts of cheating on everything that is graded that is not proctored in a classroom setting. Locking down browsers and whatnot does not prevent cheating. The only solution is to require face-to-face proctored exams and not allow students to use technology of any kind while taking the test. B…

> The only solution is to require face-to-face proctored exams and not allow students to use technology of any kind while taking the test. In Germany, all exams are like this. Homework assignments are either just a prerequisite for taking exam but the grade is solely from the exam, or you may get some small point bonus for assignments/projects. > But any teacher doing this will end up with no students signing up for…

> The main courses are mandatory in order to obtain the degree. You can't "not sign up" for linear algebra if it's in your curriculum.

The course might be mandatory but which professor you choose isn't. What if multiple professors teach it? Word gets around and everyone chooses the easy profs.

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#545

Post by dogleash »

lwhi wrote: post #178

It is no longer effective to solely use a written essay to measure how deeply a student comprehends a subject. AI is here to stay; new methods should be used to assess student performance. I remember being told at school, that we weren't allowed to use calculators in exams. The line provided by teachers was that we could never rely on having a calculator when we need it most—obviously there's irony associated with ha…

> we could never rely on having a calculator when we need it most—obviously there's irony associated with having 'calculators' in our pockets 24/7 now

That was just a simple quip to shut down student bellyaching. Even before we had pocket calculators, it was never a strong answer. It just had to hold over long enough so when you realized it was bad answer you weren't that teacher's problem anymore.

The actual answer was that they're complaining about a minor inconvenience designed for reinforcement, and if they really did need a calculator for the arithmetic on a test designed deliberately designed to be taken without a calculator, then they don't belong in that class.

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#546

Post by lm28469 »

kibwen wrote: post #465
junaru wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It even came with handwriting built in as authentication mechanism! AI detectors hate this secret! On a more serious note - US removed cursive from their curriculum almost two decades ago - something i cant wrap my head around as cursive is something the rest of the world(?) uses starting in middle school and onwards through the whole adult life.

I don't know what the rest of the world calls "cursive", but here in the US the cursive we get taught is strictly inferior: slower to write, less compact on the page, and harder to read (while also being strictly uglier than true calligraphy). It's a script designed for allowing you to avoid lifting a quill from the page and thereby avoiding ink blots; it's entirely obsolete.

Write in cursive or in print, or even cut letter from a newspaper if you want. If you do it in a classroom in front of a teacher cheating is dramatically reduced

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#548

Post by acdha »

razakel wrote: post #250
sersi wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a similar problem to people being banned from Google (insert big company name) because of an automated fraud detection system that doesn't give any reason behind the ban. I also thing that there should be laws requiring a clear explanation whenever that happens.

What about tipping off? Banks can't tell you that they've closed your account because of fraud or money laundering.

That doesn’t seem like a good comparison: it’s a far more serious crime, and while the bank won’t tell that they’re reporting your activity to the authorities the legal process absolutely will and in sensible countries you’re required to be given the opportunity to challenge the evidence.

The problem being discussed here feels like it should be similar in that last regard: any time an automated system is making a serious decision they should be required to have an explanation and review process. If they don’t have sufficient evidence to back up the claim, they need to collect that evidence before making further accusations.

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#549

Post by zero_shift »

dmd wrote: post #438
ninalanyon wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I studied physics at Exeter University they still used the tutorial system and finals. Tutorials were held fortnightly; the tutorial groups were typically three or four students. There was no obligation to turn up to lectures or even tutorials. You just had to pass the end of year exams to be allowed to continue to the final. The class of degree that was awarded depended on the open note final exam and the repor…

What about those of us who can explain our ideas and thinking clearly and in great detail in writing but would struggle to even prove we've heard of the topic orally?

(not the CP, but went to a university with a tutorial-style system)

I think the hard answer is that to some extent you just have to learn to. I mean, you could sit silently in supervisions if you really insisted, but to participate properly you just needed to build the confidence.

Is it fun? No, but it's a pretty accurate reflection of life after school: nobody in the real world gives you points for "couldn't say the right thing at the right time, but was thinking it"

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#550

Post by jjmarr »

red_admiral wrote: post #286
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The staff soon realised what garbage these tools are so if a student accused of plagiarism decided to argue back then the accusation would be quietly dropped. I ask myself when the time comes that some student will accuse the stuff of libel or slander becuase of false AI plagiarism accusations.

Or of racism. There was a thing during the pandemic where automated proctoring tools couldn't cope with people of darker skin than they were trained on; I imagine the first properly verified and scientifically valid examples of AI-detection racism will be found soon.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07856-5

LLMs already discriminates against African-American English. You could argue a human grader would as well, but all tested models were more consistent in assigning negative adjectives to hypothetical speakers of that dialect.

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