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Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

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Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#701

Post by wtrwqyw »

QuadmasterXLII wrote: post #639
tengwar2 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 60+. I'd be more concerned about the student's physical ability to write for several hours continuously. Writer's cramp used to be a problem, and that was when we were used to hand-writing everything. Legibility is also a consideration: I have to hand-write a lot(keyboards would not be socially acceptable for some of my work), and even with decades of practice and a hand that I designed for legibility, sometimes…

We have to notice that high stakes exams on paper worked for hundreds, possibly thousands of years, and high stakes exams on personal laptops have been tried for approximately six years and worked for none of them. With that framing, I don’t think the burden of proof is on the side saying that kids can take exams on paper?

> We have to notice that high stakes exams on paper worked for hundreds, possibly thousands of years

Define “worked” there are reasons we have abandoned quite a few archaic practices which turned to be highly ineffective in hindsight (and often quite misery inducing). I’m not implying that handwriting is one of them just that it’s a terrible argument.

> burden of proof is on the side saying that kids

Smacking children who fail to give a correct answer with a stick worker for thousands of years as well..

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#702

Post by wtrwqyw »

cesarb wrote: post #613
dzink wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fill the room with typewriters.

> Fill the room with typewriters. Playing devil's advocate: one reason I'm good at typing on computers is that I learned on typewriters, which need much more force for each key press, especially the little fingers. Someone who learned on computer keyboards won't have trained the muscles on their fingers as much, and will have a hard time pressing the outer keys strongly enough (and if you press the keys too lightly,…

Electric typewriters were pretty widespread by the 60-70s or so it’s just that they don’t have quite as much “retro” appeal these days ( eg like cassettes vs vinyl)

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#703

Post by unethical_ban »

yiyingzhang wrote: post #199

As a university professor, I honestly don't understand the point of grading. Who will look at and care about grades? Likely company HR. But then why should we (professors) do the screening for companies for free? Also, grades have long been inflated to a point we might as well just give everyone an A and let companies figure out how to select people.

Grades ideally should measure the understanding a student has of the subjects presented, and their ability to execute on that understanding. Regardless of other incentives, that alone warrants them.

Are you suggesting a pass/fail method, or something else?

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#704

Post by entropicdrifter »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #645
red-iron-pine wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but we can put data centers in space bro

The only problem that solves is SpaceX's cash flow / maintaining its demand for launches, and said demand is needed to justify developing mass production technology / processes for rockets.

pretty sure they were being sarcastic

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#705

Post by Arainach »

bloqs wrote: post #476
Arainach wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Most people handwrite most things in print lettering, not cursive. I'm nearly 40 and no one in my life writes anything other than their name (signature) in cursive ever.

This is not true outside of the United States

Where are you thinking? Everyone I know who speaks a language written with Latin characters doesn't use cursive. I know very little about other character sets - I believe nearly all Arabic is cursive for instance - but this has been my experience across countries.

As a specific example, all of my friends in Germany - whether born there, in Eastern Europe, or whatever - use print letters, not cursive.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#706

Post by vector_spaces »

WalterBright wrote: post #181
vector_spaces wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the sentiment, as someone who vastly prefers handwriting, but the downfall of this might be the situation we have historically had in the US with math, where the experience of being clumsily force fed this additional material can be so painful that it induces PTSD-like symptoms and a lifelong aversion to the material. A similar phenomenon even occurs with cursive and PE class. That obviously isn't to say…

How can you tell if they learned anything if you don't test them?

There was an enormous volume of material that I never understood in high school because at the time I either didn't care or other things seemed more important -- my mom was dying, for starters.

But just having exposure to that material planted it in my mind and, in many cases, I revisited those topics later as an adult and learned them properly.

To be clear, I am not advocating for doing away with testing or schooling altogether. I am only pushing back on the idea that a 16 year old who doesn't care about cursive or calculus or Chaucer or whatever today won't ever care about those topics unless we mandate he pass an exam or course on it.

More broadly, my point is that there is a cost to "forcing them" as the grandparent advocates with regard to learning cursive. The moment you "force them" you also guarantee that some people won't graduate because of that extra requirement. There are other ways to enrich people's lives without force feeding, e.g., mention it and devote a question on an exam to it.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#707

Post by vector_spaces »

customguy wrote: post #371
vector_spaces wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the sentiment, as someone who vastly prefers handwriting, but the downfall of this might be the situation we have historically had in the US with math, where the experience of being clumsily force fed this additional material can be so painful that it induces PTSD-like symptoms and a lifelong aversion to the material. A similar phenomenon even occurs with cursive and PE class. That obviously isn't to say…

Well sure, but if you force feed anything clumsily you can ruin it. We had a nice teacher, and took our sweet time in first grade learning to write the alphabet in first grade. Then it was done. IMO it wasn't "additional material", or material at all, it was part of the fundamental skill set with which to interact with the material. And there wasn't a thought in my mind that it could be any other way, of course you l…

If you mandate force feeding at scale, then yes, some instructors will do so clumsily -- this is virtually guaranteed, although it is true that some topics are more prone to this than others.

But I think you misinterpreted my comment -- I am not advocating for doing away with schooling or testing understanding in school in general, which is entirely my fault as my post was a bit unclear. But I agree with you that one should learn to read and write in school!

OP used the phrasing "force them", which I read as a stronger statement than "it'll be on the exam", and more "there will be an exam or entire course on this topic that must be passed or else". My point, more or less, was that there are many other more fundamental topics we already do this with other than cursive, and that adding another has a steep cost with uncertain payoff that is heavily dependent on the implementation.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#708

Post by lejalv »

hansvm wrote: post #406
forgetfreeman wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have absolutely no concern over a 20 yr old's ability to weather the rigors of manipulating a 7 gram pencil. It's not like we're talking about getting them to spend a week on a roofing crew or swap their gaming mouse for a set of post hole diggers here. If someone needs an accommodation then that should absolutely be made available.

I'm all for handwritten tests, but it's more complicated than that. If you're actually writing for 2hr+ and haven't studied appropriate technique or bought some sort of crutch like a pencil holder then the repetitive motion will absolutely cause cramps for a fraction of the class regardless of being 20ish and healthy, and they might not find that out until they're forced to write for 2hr. The muscles manipulating a p…

Not in my experience, nobody complained of that during my studies. 74 exams over 5 years ca. 2h long, also 2h long lectures, often without pause, back-to-back with another such lecture (but max 2 in a row)

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#709

Post by danaris »

jnwatson wrote: post #688
danaris wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think every institution of higher education has a ready supply of grad students to just throw at problems that require manpower? Or were you just assuming your experiences (large university, I'm guessing) are universal?

Yes. That's exactly what college is. If you don't have the resources to effectively individually evaluate a student's output, you shouldn't hold a graded class.

Then let me spell it out for you, since you seem to be unaware:

There are many, many colleges that have no grad students. Period. They are undergraduate colleges.

Expecting any college or university to just be able to scale up the amount of manpower required to grade their classes/exams by a large multiple is absurdly unrealistic. I assure you that most existing colleges do have plenty of resources to effectively evaluate individual students' outputs, if they don't have to assume that anything submitted digitally is written by LLMs.

That new requirement is a massive change to how they operate, and it's incredibly rude and short-sighted to be dismissive and contemptuous of institutions that have trouble adjusting to it.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#710

Post by yiyingzhang »

skrebbel wrote: post #597
userbinator wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Do you care at all about the reputation of your university? I worked briefly in post-secondary CS education a long time ago, before academia turned into the ideological warzone it is today, and if I said such a thing, I would've probably lost my job. Also, grades have long been inflated Then stop inflating them. This is also what standardised testing is good for --- but no surprise, so many are against it becaus…

I can't marry this: > before academia turned into the ideological warzone it is today with this: > and if I said such a thing, I would've probably lost my job Weren't universities supposed to be exactly the kind of place where unorthodox ideas could be freely said out loud? To fire an educator for saying the wrong opinion about education doesn't make your university sound like the great place you suggest it was. Educ…

We've been discussing this in our department for some time. No one gets fired yet :)
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