4 ms·

Maybe better to just quit essay and writing practices altogether, it will end up in a pointless cat-and-mouse exercise between deception and detection. Edit: I

Maybe better to just quit essay and writing practices altogether, it will end up in a pointless cat-and-mouse exercise between deception and detection. Edit: I see this was not a popular take, but I'm open to hear a practical solution, where teachers don't have to waste time grading the work of an AI instead of actual student work.

calciphus 4y ago
Teachers are very good at spotting when a paper was not written by a student. Any student they've worked with and graded works from they can identify. When someone changes tone, pattern, word choice, and grammer all at once? It's usually not because of a flash of academic inspiration. The problem is that accusing a student of cheating (especially in the US) comes with a risk of lawsuit by parents and being forced to "prove it". If it's not clear-cut plagerism but a new novel work, that claim doesn't hold up. I think the future of this is milti-fold. Don't try and identify AI papers (as you say, a cat and mouse game), just try to identify if the author is the same author as previous works. Students over their academic careers produce many works, enough to identify them. Secondarily, emphasize more short form writing in class, where research is done ahead of time but papers are composed in real time. Last, especially for younger students, emphasize (and grade) the process, not the outcome as much. Show your sources, outline, etc long before you turn in a paper. The value of having ai write it drops if you have to show your work.
- threatofrain 4y ago
  Neither party can prove that inconsistency with prior styles means cheating or original authorship. And asking someone to undergo the burden of writing an extra essay just to prove that they can repeat prior output is unfair and capricious.
  - 411111111111111 4y ago
    I can only talk about myself, and I haven't had to do this kind of essay since school roughly 20yrs ago. I remember pretty vividly that my ability to formulate good essays varied massively between days. (And it's the same now, though it's code instead of essays nowadays.) There are days on which I struggle being coherent and others on which things just flow out - sentences chain together into a fantastic essay. The proposed idea would absolutely fail people like me as cheating. Honestly, this whole debacle was obviously going to happen and anyone with half a brain predicted it when these services (the fraud detection ones) started to pop up.
- dorkwood 4y ago
  I've been accused of cheating several times over the years. It's because I don't perform well in a classroom environment. I don't think on my feet very well, so I tend to sound a bit dumb. But if I take a problem away and study it intently, I can produce very high quality work. I think there's a danger of teachers rating their cheat-detection ability too highly and catching people like myself in the crossfire.
Thorrez 4y ago
Quit homework essays. Students can still write essays on paper by hand in class. I did that in school during exams.
- themoonisachees 4y ago
  Homework is inherently classist (and by extension racist) in the first place, and (this i'm way less certain) isn't it largely shown to be ineffective?
  - ta120890 4y ago
    This is disappointing rhetoric that I would like to see improved. Homework is not inherently classist or, even by extension, racist. The practice of assigning and completing homework is affected by the conditions that are often associated with (but not always caused by) class and race. The labels of ‘classist’ and ‘racist’ are absolutes, indicating a 1-to-1 causal relationship that is not present here. It would be better to state that homework, as employed by many teachers today, may be (or arguably is) less effective at promoting learning across all economic and racial categories. The idea behind homework is sound: it gives the student additional study time than is available during school. If additional time studying has positive outcomes, then homework is a positive concept. If some students do not have the time, environment, or support for this added study, it is reasonable to look for ways to support and enable their success instead of effectively penalizing them for circumstances outside of their control. Using terms like ‘classist’ and ‘racist’ discards much needed nuance.

calciphus 4y ago

Teachers are very good at spotting when a paper was not written by a student. Any student they've worked with and graded works from they can identify. When someone changes tone, pattern, word choice, and grammer all at once? It's usually not because of a flash of academic inspiration. The problem is that accusing a student of cheating (especially in the US) comes with a risk of lawsuit by parents and being forced to "prove it". If it's not clear-cut plagerism but a new novel work, that claim doesn't hold up. I think the future of this is milti-fold. Don't try and identify AI papers (as you say, a cat and mouse game), just try to identify if the author is the same author as previous works. Students over their academic careers produce many works, enough to identify them. Secondarily, emphasize more short form writing in class, where research is done ahead of time but papers are composed in real time. Last, especially for younger students, emphasize (and grade) the process, not the outcome as much. Show your sources, outline, etc long before you turn in a paper. The value of having ai write it drops if you have to show your work.

threatofrain 4y ago
Neither party can prove that inconsistency with prior styles means cheating or original authorship. And asking someone to undergo the burden of writing an extra essay just to prove that they can repeat prior output is unfair and capricious.
- 411111111111111 4y ago
  I can only talk about myself, and I haven't had to do this kind of essay since school roughly 20yrs ago. I remember pretty vividly that my ability to formulate good essays varied massively between days. (And it's the same now, though it's code instead of essays nowadays.) There are days on which I struggle being coherent and others on which things just flow out - sentences chain together into a fantastic essay. The proposed idea would absolutely fail people like me as cheating. Honestly, this whole debacle was obviously going to happen and anyone with half a brain predicted it when these services (the fraud detection ones) started to pop up.
dorkwood 4y ago
I've been accused of cheating several times over the years. It's because I don't perform well in a classroom environment. I don't think on my feet very well, so I tend to sound a bit dumb. But if I take a problem away and study it intently, I can produce very high quality work. I think there's a danger of teachers rating their cheat-detection ability too highly and catching people like myself in the crossfire.

Thorrez 4y ago

Quit homework essays. Students can still write essays on paper by hand in class. I did that in school during exams.

themoonisachees 4y ago
Homework is inherently classist (and by extension racist) in the first place, and (this i'm way less certain) isn't it largely shown to be ineffective?
- ta120890 4y ago
  This is disappointing rhetoric that I would like to see improved. Homework is not inherently classist or, even by extension, racist. The practice of assigning and completing homework is affected by the conditions that are often associated with (but not always caused by) class and race. The labels of ‘classist’ and ‘racist’ are absolutes, indicating a 1-to-1 causal relationship that is not present here. It would be better to state that homework, as employed by many teachers today, may be (or arguably is) less effective at promoting learning across all economic and racial categories. The idea behind homework is sound: it gives the student additional study time than is available during school. If additional time studying has positive outcomes, then homework is a positive concept. If some students do not have the time, environment, or support for this added study, it is reasonable to look for ways to support and enable their success instead of effectively penalizing them for circumstances outside of their control. Using terms like ‘classist’ and ‘racist’ discards much needed nuance.