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I had to mark about 100 end of term essays written by Indian students for a British university. My unwritten instructions are not to take language into account

I had to mark about 100 end of term essays written by Indian students for a British university. My unwritten instructions are not to take language into account much. I must attend mainly to the technical content. At least half were written in what I took to be an authentic voice but with such bad grammar and spelling as to render them barely readable. Some had clearly been mangled in a laundromat of Google translate from Hinglish via Mongolian and Swahili. They contained bizarre phrases and comical statements. Many more were obviously written by some kind of generator and fudged until they read well enough. Since the student handbook states the threshold for academic "plagiarism" is above 20 percent perhaps unsurprisingly the Turnitin (an awful tool) score for almost every essays was just below 20 percent. An interesting clustering! Students who cheat have a formidable array of tools now, not just GPT but automatic re-writers and scripts to test against Turnitin until it passes. Add to this problem that my time for marking is not paid extra, is squeezed tighter every semester, and that students are given endless concessions to boost their "experience". The handbook also says that if they fail, no worries, they get to try again, and again, and again... and I am sure if I actually stuck to my guns and failed every single student I'd be fired. As I wrote in the Times last year, I think the technological arms race against GPT (and the economic conditions that mean it's used) cannot be won with the time and resources available to ordinary human teachers.

User23 4y ago
> As I wrote in the Times last year, I think the technological arms race against GPT (and the economic conditions that mean it's used) cannot be won with the time and resources available to ordinary human teachers Based on the rest of your post, there appears to be a stronger case that your students are setting a rather low bar for GPT to stumble over. It's unfortunate that there are so many cultures where widespread cheating is condoned, if not outright encouraged. They may be able to fool their teachers, but how much comfort will that be when the bridges are collapsing, the pipelines are exploding, the wind turbines are breaking apart, and all the other activities that ultimately report to reality and not some human superior who can be bluffed become impossible to continue?
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  > It's unfortunate that there are so many cultures where widespread cheating is condoned, if not outright encouraged. They may be able to fool their teachers, but how much comfort will that be when the bridges are collapsing, the pipelines are exploding, the wind turbines are breaking apart, and all the other activities that ultimately report to reality and not some human superior who can be bluffed become impossible to continue? You're so right. But let me add some other feelings, so as not to sound like a racist or that British universities are some "great white hope" to overseas students. This had little to do with them being Indian. It's a generational thing. In all cultures we teach young people to game systems. Right from the get go they learn that if they can buy powerful tools, systems and access then that's fair game. They're just doing what they've been rewarded for their whole lives and want to make a better life. To them it's not cheating. I am the anachronistic throwback here I think.
  - oneoff786 4y ago
    Bullshit. Cheating is far more common in the hyper competitive cultures like India and China. That behavior would be obviously identified as cheating in most western cultures. Not that cheating isn’t a big problem in these cultures too, but not to nearly the same scale.
matkoniecz 4y ago
> cannot be won with the time and resources available to ordinary human teachers By your description it clearly appears that whoever manages your company[1] is not actually interested in detecting cheating. What you describe could be easily combated by giving teachers ability to fail blatant cheaters. [1]At this point it is hard to pretend that it is university
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  I agree with every word you say.
  - matkoniecz 4y ago
    In such case it seems that GPT-3 main effect is to make eroding standards easier. As while rules are not changed, cheaters can put less work to pass it by cheating than before. So standards can be lowered while pretending (for now) that it has not happened.
RicoElectrico 4y ago
What major was it?
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  I can't say. That would identify the students and that's unfair. But, a technical subject that could be assessed in other, better ways [1], and for which written essays are rather easy to template and do keyword bingo to get a bare pass. [1] Making the professor read 100 essays is a cheap option.
  - RicoElectrico 4y ago
    Yeah, in my EE major I never really had to write an essay. I have no idea why English/USA universities are fixated on them (or so it seems based on comments from the internet). Lab/project reports, seminar talks - I did these instead.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
schroeding 4y ago
> My unwritten instructions are not to take language into account much. I must attend mainly to the technical content. Interesting, at my non-English, run-off-the-mill university there were modules / seminars in CompSci where large amounts of language errors in essays (even if written in English, a non-native language for the majority of staff and students) could ruin the grade. ^^
- gs17 4y ago
  My undergrad even had a "banned error list", which would get you kicked down half a grade on any paper.
milkey_mouse 4y ago
> automatic re-writers and scripts to test against Turnitin until it passes Like an ad-hoc GAN where Turnitin is the discriminator. Interesting.
Aardwolf 4y ago
> Students who cheat have a formidable array of tools now, not just GPT but automatic re-writers and scripts to test against Turnitin until it passes. Conduct tests in a room with all electronics confiscated

User23 4y ago

> As I wrote in the Times last year, I think the technological arms race against GPT (and the economic conditions that mean it's used) cannot be won with the time and resources available to ordinary human teachers Based on the rest of your post, there appears to be a stronger case that your students are setting a rather low bar for GPT to stumble over. It's unfortunate that there are so many cultures where widespread cheating is condoned, if not outright encouraged. They may be able to fool their teachers, but how much comfort will that be when the bridges are collapsing, the pipelines are exploding, the wind turbines are breaking apart, and all the other activities that ultimately report to reality and not some human superior who can be bluffed become impossible to continue?

nonrandomstring 4y ago
> It's unfortunate that there are so many cultures where widespread cheating is condoned, if not outright encouraged. They may be able to fool their teachers, but how much comfort will that be when the bridges are collapsing, the pipelines are exploding, the wind turbines are breaking apart, and all the other activities that ultimately report to reality and not some human superior who can be bluffed become impossible to continue? You're so right. But let me add some other feelings, so as not to sound like a racist or that British universities are some "great white hope" to overseas students. This had little to do with them being Indian. It's a generational thing. In all cultures we teach young people to game systems. Right from the get go they learn that if they can buy powerful tools, systems and access then that's fair game. They're just doing what they've been rewarded for their whole lives and want to make a better life. To them it's not cheating. I am the anachronistic throwback here I think.
- oneoff786 4y ago
  Bullshit. Cheating is far more common in the hyper competitive cultures like India and China. That behavior would be obviously identified as cheating in most western cultures. Not that cheating isn’t a big problem in these cultures too, but not to nearly the same scale.

matkoniecz 4y ago

> cannot be won with the time and resources available to ordinary human teachers By your description it clearly appears that whoever manages your company[1] is not actually interested in detecting cheating. What you describe could be easily combated by giving teachers ability to fail blatant cheaters. [1]At this point it is hard to pretend that it is university

nonrandomstring 4y ago
I agree with every word you say.
- matkoniecz 4y ago
  In such case it seems that GPT-3 main effect is to make eroding standards easier. As while rules are not changed, cheaters can put less work to pass it by cheating than before. So standards can be lowered while pretending (for now) that it has not happened.

RicoElectrico 4y ago

What major was it?

nonrandomstring 4y ago
I can't say. That would identify the students and that's unfair. But, a technical subject that could be assessed in other, better ways [1], and for which written essays are rather easy to template and do keyword bingo to get a bare pass. [1] Making the professor read 100 essays is a cheap option.
- RicoElectrico 4y ago
  Yeah, in my EE major I never really had to write an essay. I have no idea why English/USA universities are fixated on them (or so it seems based on comments from the internet). Lab/project reports, seminar talks - I did these instead.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

schroeding 4y ago

> My unwritten instructions are not to take language into account much. I must attend mainly to the technical content. Interesting, at my non-English, run-off-the-mill university there were modules / seminars in CompSci where large amounts of language errors in essays (even if written in English, a non-native language for the majority of staff and students) could ruin the grade. ^^

gs17 4y ago
My undergrad even had a "banned error list", which would get you kicked down half a grade on any paper.

milkey_mouse 4y ago

> automatic re-writers and scripts to test against Turnitin until it passes Like an ad-hoc GAN where Turnitin is the discriminator. Interesting.

Aardwolf 4y ago

> Students who cheat have a formidable array of tools now, not just GPT but automatic re-writers and scripts to test against Turnitin until it passes. Conduct tests in a room with all electronics confiscated