Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

voiceofsandiego.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 317 posts

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#71

Post by RegnisGnaw »

rescbr wrote: post #68
RegnisGnaw wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> People that want to cheat or game the system will find ways, it isn't hard to do. As someone who taught a college, that's a flawed statement. Let me propose this to you. You teach Calculus 1000 and there is an end of term exam. Your normal end of term exam is one where everyone sits in the same room, proctors are looking for cheats, things checked, etc. Instead this year you tell your students that this year it wi…

I had my fair share of uncheatable open book exams, calculators allowed back in college. One I had on Calculus (or was it Linear Algebra?) was way harder than a comparable closed book exam. You really needed to know the subject to pass vs just memorizing a couple of formulas and plugging them in the right place. Another professor devised an exam that used your student ID as a variable of the first question, and subse…

> I had my fair share of uncheatable open book exams, calculators allowed back in college. One I had on Calculus (or was it Linear Algebra?) was way harder than a comparable closed book exam. You really needed to know the subject to pass vs just memorizing a couple of formulas and plugging them in the right place.

We're discussing this in relation in relation to COVID, so no large gathering. This means no open book in person exams, I'm specifically talking about take home exams.

> Another professor devised an exam that used your student ID as a variable of the first question, and subsequent questions used the previous answers as inputs. Impossible to cheat.

Really easy to do so in a take home exam.

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#72

Post by Terrario »

klodolph wrote: post #58
Terrario wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this misses the parent’s point. The point is to not let the algorithm make decisions. The human bureaucracy is suppose to be there to determine the quality of the flags and analyze whether there is any discrimination at play. A company that lacks this human element is negligent and should be held responsible. Unless algorithms can be trialed and held accountable, they shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions. A…

> I think this misses the parent’s point. Just because you disagree with me, it doesn’t mean that I misunderstood the viewpoint I’m responding to. > The point is to not let the algorithm make decisions. And my response is—that’s not enough. It sounds like the algorithm, because it is biased, has the effect of increasing the bias in the whole system. If your response is that humans should work harder to counteract bia…

I do think you missed the point.

Parent: The software itself shouldn't have any control over the student's grades. A person should have to review the flags and actually find some wrongdoing. Not just push 'yes' and walk away.

You: Let’s say you’re only using the software to flag suspicious behavior, and bringing in humans to make the final decision. What happens when (inevitably) the software disproportionally flags people with dark skin because it is not trained to recognize dark-skinned faces? Or when the software disproportionally flags poor people, or people with families?

Answer: A person should have to review the flags and actually find some wrongdoing.

You: It means that those groups of people will be targeted by the (human) bureaucracy and tasked with defending themselves, when they’ve done nothing wrong

Me: The human bureaucracy is suppose to be there to determine the quality of the flags and analyze whether there is any discrimination at play. A company that lacks this human element is negligent and should be held responsible.

> And my response is—that’s not enough. It sounds like the algorithm, because it is biased, has the effect of increasing the bias in the whole system.

Hence why the humans should be held responsible for not addressing bias in their system. And why the actions of an algorithm should be the responsibility of its creators.

> If your response is that humans should work harder to counteract biases in machine systems, well, I think that’s just a way to CYA and assign blame but not a way to solve the problem—humans will remain biased, and they will trust automated systems even when that trust is misplaced.

So...? What’s your solution? All you’re saying is that humans will remain bias, yeah they will. That’s why we have laws that punish discrimination and bias. If your company creates products (algorithms) that discriminate, you should be held responsible. The human element is not there to “work harder” but to assure that what you’re releasing works properly. If you don’t think increased accountability fixes the problem, please tell us what would be “enough”.

> This argument assumes that EITHER access to guns is to blame OR people are to blame, but not both

No assumption. If you think a cop can have a gun but a criminal can’t then the gun isn’t the problem. If you believe cops can have guns but civilians can’t then the main factor is the person with the gun and not the gun itself. This isn’t an argument against increased restrictions and if you believe no one should have guns (including the government) im all for it. But if you believe someone has the right to have guns while others don’t, im hard pressed to see any other determining factor except who has the gun.

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#73

Post by klodolph »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #64
klodolph wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument is fallacious. Your argument assumes that “blaming the gun” is condoning the users, and this is a false dilemma. There’s really no room for absolutism, where blame is assigned to one source rather than distributed among many contributing factors. Imagine how dangerous air travel would still be if, after an accident, investigators looked for only one cause to blame, and tacitly condoned anything else the…

>This argument is fallacious. Re-read my comment. My point is that fault is distributed sufficiently that accountability seems to evaporate. This is a systemic or organizational problem. Anti-cheating software is just the form this specific instance has taken. >Your argument assumes that “blaming the gun” is condoning the users Well until now you weren't throwing even the slightest bit of shade in their direction. >a…

> Re-read my comment.

Stopped reading at that point, cheers.

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#74

Post by RegnisGnaw »

ghaff wrote: post #30
RegnisGnaw wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> How about writing open-book tests in ways that are impossible to cheat on if you don't understand the material? You've had almost a year to adapt. So in a remote test situation, explain how this is possible without use of these software. I can think of many scenarios where a second person can be in the room and doing the exam.

And yet I had many open book tests/assignments decades ago before there were even personal computers. Technology doesn't solve everything and some things aren't worth trying to solve 100%.

At the same time it doesn't mean we should not try to solve them to say 90%.

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#75

Post by klodolph »

Terrario wrote: post #72
klodolph wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think this misses the parent’s point. Just because you disagree with me, it doesn’t mean that I misunderstood the viewpoint I’m responding to. > The point is to not let the algorithm make decisions. And my response is—that’s not enough. It sounds like the algorithm, because it is biased, has the effect of increasing the bias in the whole system. If your response is that humans should work harder to counteract bia…

I do think you missed the point. Parent: The software itself shouldn't have any control over the student's grades. A person should have to review the flags and actually find some wrongdoing. Not just push 'yes' and walk away. You: Let’s say you’re only using the software to flag suspicious behavior, and bringing in humans to make the final decision. What happens when (inevitably) the software disproportionally flags…

> I do think you missed the point.

Please make an effort to engage with the comments I make, rather than making guesses about my mental state.

> Me: The human bureaucracy is suppose to be there to determine the quality of the flags and analyze whether there is any discrimination at play. A company that lacks this human element is negligent and should be held responsible.

The human bureaucracy doesn’t do that very well. The human bureaucracy is deeply flawed and has limited skills. We can assign blame to the human bureaucracy for its failings all we want, but if we want to effect change then it’s necessary to include a broader range of factors in out fault analysis.

In other words, “assigning blame” is a low-stakes political game, and “root-cause analysis” is what really matters.

This is like the 737 MAX failures. You can say that it’s the pilot’s responsibility to fly the plane correctly—but the fact is, pilots have a limited amount of skill and focus, and can’t overcome any arbitrary failing of technology. So we rightly attribute the problem to the design of the system, of which the human is only one component.

This grading software is like the 737 MAX—it’s software that, as part of a complete system including non-software components like humans, does a bad job and needs repair. The 737 MAX reports listed something like NINE different root causes.

I don’t understand this absolutist viewpoint that the human bureaucracy is the ONLY thing that you need to protect you from bad software. There are multiple root causes, and the bad software is one of them.

> Hence why the humans should be held responsible for not addressing bias in their system. And why the actions of an algorithm should be the responsibility of its creators.

So you’re saying that there’s a problem with the software, and that we shouldn’t place all the blame on the college administrators? Isn’t that what I’m saying?

> But if you believe someone has the right to have guns while others don’t, im hard pressed to see any other determining factor except who has the gun.

I do believe that not everyone should have the right to own guns, but if you’re interested in arguing with me about it, I won’t engage. If the comparison doesn’t work for you, think of something less emotionally charged like the 737 MAX or the Tesla Autopilot—both are scenarios where we rightly cite the software / automation as a root cause in accidents.

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#76

Post by klodolph »

tgv wrote: post #69
klodolph wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a curious way to frame the problem. The harm from these anti-cheating measures is evident.

The one I replied to gives as reason: you can't stop them all. Let's just give everyone a MSc, shall we?

> Let's just give everyone a MSc, shall we?

Are you claiming that having open-book tests makes it so that everyone can get an MSc? That’s what it sounds like you’re saying, so I assume that I just don’t know what you’re arguing.

Every system is going to catch some percentage of cheaters and wrongly punish some percentage of innocent people. The pandemic has put us in a bad position where we can’t use some of the more effective systems (in-class tests) for assessing knowledge / preventing cheating, so we are forced to come up with some kind of compromise, and in many subjects, open-book, take-home tests work very well (although they require more work from the professors).

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#77

Post by dragonwriter »

klodolph wrote: post #75
Terrario wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think you missed the point. Parent: The software itself shouldn't have any control over the student's grades. A person should have to review the flags and actually find some wrongdoing. Not just push 'yes' and walk away. You: Let’s say you’re only using the software to flag suspicious behavior, and bringing in humans to make the final decision. What happens when (inevitably) the software disproportionally flags…

> I do think you missed the point. Please make an effort to engage with the comments I make, rather than making guesses about my mental state. > Me: The human bureaucracy is suppose to be there to determine the quality of the flags and analyze whether there is any discrimination at play. A company that lacks this human element is negligent and should be held responsible. The human bureaucracy doesn’t do that very wel…

> I don’t understand this absolutist viewpoint that the human bureaucracy is the ONLY thing that you need to protect you from bad software. There are multiple root causes, and the bad software is one of them.

There are multiple intermediate causes, and all of them are the responsibility of the human bureaucracy—including, to the extent it contributes, the selection, use, and failure to correct bad software—and all of them stem from one root cause, to wit, that the bureaucracy faces insufficient consequences for it's failures and thus lacks motivation to do it's job well.

Now, were the analysis being performed on behalf of the bureaucracy because they had decided to do their job, rather than being part of a discussion outside of them, the causes which are intermediate from a global perspective would be root causes, sure. Context matters.

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#78

Post by mcphage »

gruez wrote: post #66
iandanforth wrote: post #52

A few points: Their "powerful AI engine" is almost certainly just humans. It might have a few off-the-shelf components like face detection but most of what they claim to do is just so easy to outsource that almost all companies do it. If there is any delay between the system observing a suspect behaviour and the student being told to correct it then they are definitely using humans. An institution using a service lik…

>Ryan Calo (Prof of Law, UW) once presented a fascinating bit of research on trying to automate something as simple as fining someone for speeding. [...] Most of the problems you've listed only exist because of expectations caused by inconsistent/lenient enforcement by human police officers. People don't seem to have a problem with strictly enforced rules in finance. eg. "your bank account can't below zero without tr…

> People don't seem to have a problem with strictly enforced rules in finance. eg. "your bank account can't below zero without triggering a overdraft".

I think a lot of people have problems with strictly enforced rules in finance. Especially when banks re-order daily transactions in order to maximize overdraft fees.

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#79

Post by 0xffff2 »

jbob2000 wrote: post #41
parzivalm wrote: post #25

The thing that has always frustrated me about anti-cheating/anti-plagiarism software is that it almost always only hurts people that did something by accident or unintentionally. When I took the one kubernetes certification exam as part of an old job, you used software like this and at one point I leaned too close to the screen and the proctor couldn't see my face and that got me flagged. People that want to cheat or…

My partner recently finished her PhD and has started working as a medical writer. During her academic career, it was beat into her head don’t plagiarize, everything must be yours . In her first review after a few weeks on the job, her manager says that she takes too long to do her work; they just need her to take what the client says verbatim, fact check it, and then slap it in a document. She was treating her work l…

Why would she take a job as a glorified typist after completing a Phd? Why is the company hiring a Phd to be a glorified typist?

Academia was never meant to be a jobs training program. The fact that many students treat it as such is not really the fault of the institutions.

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#80

Post by gruez »

mcphage wrote: post #78
gruez wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Ryan Calo (Prof of Law, UW) once presented a fascinating bit of research on trying to automate something as simple as fining someone for speeding. [...] Most of the problems you've listed only exist because of expectations caused by inconsistent/lenient enforcement by human police officers. People don't seem to have a problem with strictly enforced rules in finance. eg. "your bank account can't below zero without tr…

> People don't seem to have a problem with strictly enforced rules in finance. eg. "your bank account can't below zero without triggering a overdraft". I think a lot of people have problems with strictly enforced rules in finance. Especially when banks re-order daily transactions in order to maximize overdraft fees.

>I think a lot of people have problems with strictly enforced rules in finance

They have problems with it because the rules cost them money, not because it's hard to understand or rigidly enforced. If the rules just resulted in a "transaction declined" they wouldn't really care either way. For instance, I don't think anyone thinks that it's unreasonable for your debit card to get declined if you don't have enough money.

Post reply on HN