4 ms·

I teach college, and in the beginning days, everyone was screaming about "the students will have chatGPT write papers now". Well, apart from the fact that chat

I teach college, and in the beginning days, everyone was screaming about "the students will have chatGPT write papers now". Well, apart from the fact that chatGPT is really incapable of developing a thought, and also apart from the fact that half will fail to delete sentences like "I'm a language model, so I can't..." (insert gist of question here), it's painfully obvious if something is LLM generated. The moment a sentence like "it's crucial to remember" pops up, I know what this is. Then, there's also the element that it always sounds like it's speaking to a child, and it avoids actually saying things unequivocally without some sort of disclaimer, as the legal department's CYA filter will ensure. I remain thoroughly unimpressed by the entire venture. If this is Skynet 1.0, we're all safe for centuries to come.

wefarrell 3y ago
GPT-4 is capable of fairly complex reasoning and it's possible to mitigate the obvious giveaways by prompting it to write in the style of a particular author. Students who pay the $20 a month for it and are aware of its limitations will absolutely use it and it won't be obvious.
- plutonorm 3y ago
  Agree. hacker news is in hard cope mode.
rmorey 3y ago
Don't you have to believe there could be GPT submissions still flying under your radar? The obvious ones are obvious, and with subtle giveaways you probably catch most. But how could you know you aren't missing any?
- bigger_inside 3y ago
  If they're pruned and curated enough to not be immediately recognizable, let them have their chatGPT papers. Bad cheating is just a sign of not caring, but good cheating takes effort and smarts...
jjgreen 3y ago
A case in point https://twitter.com/venturetwins/status/1648410430338129920 https://twitter.com/venturetwins/status/1648410430338129920 (if you have any views left).
tester457 3y ago
> "it's crucial to remember" > "I'm a language model, so I can't..." You won't catch the clever students who programmically remove these (e.g. using Langchain).
- wefarrell 3y ago
  It's not even that complicated, you just need to prompt it properly and it won't respond with those disclaimers.
tootie 3y ago
I likened ChatGPT's style to an 8th grade honors student. It has consistently solid grammar and diction but it's incredibly bland and incapable of insight. I think it's value for writing with clarity is excellent but it's worthless at coming up with ideas.
- bigger_inside 3y ago
  That description goes for college students, too. Though the blandness isn't lack of skill; it's fear and powerlessness. Michael Berubé has this story where he says, he once came early to class and overheard the students make great arguments about movies and shows they saw last night, discussing them heatedly. Then, when the lesson started, all the arguments turned bland, banal, reproductive. Obvious conclusion: They -can- very well produce good insight, but the college and school systems discourage it. They reward them for repeating ideas they read in books about their things, or what the teacher said; an original idea is dangerous, because they're responsible for it themselves, and if the teacher doesn't like it, they'll get punished for it. Safer to say, "Miller said..." and shove off accountability to someone published.
- vGPU 3y ago
  A simple prompt to “rewrite, but more engaging” will work wonders.
Kiro 3y ago
I get that you think it's overhyped but how can you be thoroughly unimpressed? This stuff was pure science-fiction just a couple of years ago.
- layer8 3y ago
  Not the OP, but mostly because it doesn’t do what I’d want an AI to do.
QuadmasterXLII 3y ago
<picture of b24 with red dots everywhere but the engines>
tlogan 3y ago
It might be that you do not know what you do not know. Yes, you’ll notice some stupid cheaters, but you might not catch everything. I can see why you believe identifying GPT-generated text is easy. This is because techniques like prompt engineering, few-shot learning, and fine-tuning aren't known and used extensively yet. For instance, with a 32k model, you could input all your previous writings and the instruct gpt to mimic your style—even down to the grammar mistakes.
- gochi 3y ago
  >you could input all your previous writings and the instruct gpt to mimic your style—even down to the grammar mistakes. This requires having a massive amount of previous writings to input, otherwise gpt struggles actually differentiating styles enough to generate it consistently in the same way a human would. Most students do not have enough personal writing data to train from. This also excludes other strategies, such as getting every student to write on paper in a supervised environment and using this to guide your pattern assessments of submitted electronic works. It's very difficult for people to remain consistent and implement their own style in gpt generation. You can ask the many creative writers who are trying to use gpt for stories, and how many of them have to treat generation as an extreme rough draft of plot points at best.
- horsawlarway 3y ago
  This was my take. I think absolutely anyone claiming that detecting LLM generated text is easy is flat out lying to themselves, or has only spent a few tokens and very little time playing with it. Take semi-decent output, give it a single proof read and a few edits... and I don't fucking believe anyone who says they'll detect it. They absolutely will detect some of the most egregious examples of it, but assuming that's all of it is near willfully naive at this point.
- synxos 3y ago
  I am a chatGPT4 fanatic but college students I have talked to have all said the same thing. They aren't going to risk getting expelled. Schools have done a good job of putting the fear of God into kids to not use chatGPT. Better to just not turn a paper in than to be accused of plagiarism. All chatGPT shows to me is we have a ton of smart, incredibly closed minded people that know what they know and they think they have it all figured out. My paper would be easy to spot if chatGPT helped because the writing would be so much better. The thoughts would be much better organized.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
anotherman554 3y ago
This isn't true and it's odd you believe it. I just asked Chat GPT 4 to explain the religious significance of the Wizard of Oz as a literary critic. Here's some of what it gave me, it doesn't write anything like you claim it does: "Moreover, Dorothy's companions -- the Scarecrow seeking a brain (wisdom), the Tin Man seeking a heart (love/compassion), and the Lion seeking courage (strength) -- symbolize spiritual virtues that are often extolled in religious texts. They embark on this quest together, mirroring the communal aspect of many religions. The slippers (silver in the book, ruby in the film) can be viewed as sacred objects, or relics, that assist her in her journey, providing divine protection and eventually leading her to salvation (returning home). Finally, the revelation that the Wizard is a mere mortal, and that Dorothy had the power to return home all along, imparts a spiritual lesson often found in religious narratives: the divine or the sacred is not external, but within us." If I was a student I could have easily expanded on these concepts (with or without GPT) and turned in a good essay.
- joeframbach 3y ago
  Genuinely curious - what religions are being described here? It doesn't match my limited understanding of any religions I'm familiar with.
  - anotherman554 3y ago
    I didn't ask GPT to describe any particular religion. My prompt was "As a literary critic, describe how Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz is a religious figure." The divine being contained within I would think would match Buddhism pretty well. The reference to relics is too vague to pin down to any religion, there's probably lots of examples of it in lots of religions. If I had to defend it off the top if my head I'd compare the Ruby slippers to the "holy moly" herb Athena gives Odysseus to defend him from Circe. If anything I think GPT went wrong saying strength is one of the virtues associated with the Lion. It would be much easier to focus on courage and say he needs to learn to be like a brave apostle who says things like "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me:" My point wasn't that this essay was particularly good, necessarily, only that it was was good enough for undergraduate work.
vGPU 3y ago
I don’t know about actually writing papers, but I’ve had surprisingly good results having chatgpt rewrite things for me.

wefarrell 3y ago

GPT-4 is capable of fairly complex reasoning and it's possible to mitigate the obvious giveaways by prompting it to write in the style of a particular author. Students who pay the $20 a month for it and are aware of its limitations will absolutely use it and it won't be obvious.

plutonorm 3y ago
Agree. hacker news is in hard cope mode.

rmorey 3y ago

Don't you have to believe there could be GPT submissions still flying under your radar? The obvious ones are obvious, and with subtle giveaways you probably catch most. But how could you know you aren't missing any?

bigger_inside 3y ago
If they're pruned and curated enough to not be immediately recognizable, let them have their chatGPT papers. Bad cheating is just a sign of not caring, but good cheating takes effort and smarts...

jjgreen 3y ago

A case in point https://twitter.com/venturetwins/status/1648410430338129920 https://twitter.com/venturetwins/status/1648410430338129920 (if you have any views left).

tester457 3y ago

> "it's crucial to remember" > "I'm a language model, so I can't..." You won't catch the clever students who programmically remove these (e.g. using Langchain).

wefarrell 3y ago
It's not even that complicated, you just need to prompt it properly and it won't respond with those disclaimers.

tootie 3y ago

I likened ChatGPT's style to an 8th grade honors student. It has consistently solid grammar and diction but it's incredibly bland and incapable of insight. I think it's value for writing with clarity is excellent but it's worthless at coming up with ideas.

bigger_inside 3y ago
That description goes for college students, too. Though the blandness isn't lack of skill; it's fear and powerlessness. Michael Berubé has this story where he says, he once came early to class and overheard the students make great arguments about movies and shows they saw last night, discussing them heatedly. Then, when the lesson started, all the arguments turned bland, banal, reproductive. Obvious conclusion: They -can- very well produce good insight, but the college and school systems discourage it. They reward them for repeating ideas they read in books about their things, or what the teacher said; an original idea is dangerous, because they're responsible for it themselves, and if the teacher doesn't like it, they'll get punished for it. Safer to say, "Miller said..." and shove off accountability to someone published.
vGPU 3y ago
A simple prompt to “rewrite, but more engaging” will work wonders.

Kiro 3y ago

I get that you think it's overhyped but how can you be thoroughly unimpressed? This stuff was pure science-fiction just a couple of years ago.

layer8 3y ago
Not the OP, but mostly because it doesn’t do what I’d want an AI to do.

QuadmasterXLII 3y ago

tlogan 3y ago

It might be that you do not know what you do not know. Yes, you’ll notice some stupid cheaters, but you might not catch everything. I can see why you believe identifying GPT-generated text is easy. This is because techniques like prompt engineering, few-shot learning, and fine-tuning aren't known and used extensively yet. For instance, with a 32k model, you could input all your previous writings and the instruct gpt to mimic your style—even down to the grammar mistakes.

gochi 3y ago
>you could input all your previous writings and the instruct gpt to mimic your style—even down to the grammar mistakes. This requires having a massive amount of previous writings to input, otherwise gpt struggles actually differentiating styles enough to generate it consistently in the same way a human would. Most students do not have enough personal writing data to train from. This also excludes other strategies, such as getting every student to write on paper in a supervised environment and using this to guide your pattern assessments of submitted electronic works. It's very difficult for people to remain consistent and implement their own style in gpt generation. You can ask the many creative writers who are trying to use gpt for stories, and how many of them have to treat generation as an extreme rough draft of plot points at best.
horsawlarway 3y ago
This was my take. I think absolutely anyone claiming that detecting LLM generated text is easy is flat out lying to themselves, or has only spent a few tokens and very little time playing with it. Take semi-decent output, give it a single proof read and a few edits... and I don't fucking believe anyone who says they'll detect it. They absolutely will detect some of the most egregious examples of it, but assuming that's all of it is near willfully naive at this point.
synxos 3y ago
I am a chatGPT4 fanatic but college students I have talked to have all said the same thing. They aren't going to risk getting expelled. Schools have done a good job of putting the fear of God into kids to not use chatGPT. Better to just not turn a paper in than to be accused of plagiarism. All chatGPT shows to me is we have a ton of smart, incredibly closed minded people that know what they know and they think they have it all figured out. My paper would be easy to spot if chatGPT helped because the writing would be so much better. The thoughts would be much better organized.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

anotherman554 3y ago

This isn't true and it's odd you believe it. I just asked Chat GPT 4 to explain the religious significance of the Wizard of Oz as a literary critic. Here's some of what it gave me, it doesn't write anything like you claim it does: "Moreover, Dorothy's companions -- the Scarecrow seeking a brain (wisdom), the Tin Man seeking a heart (love/compassion), and the Lion seeking courage (strength) -- symbolize spiritual virtues that are often extolled in religious texts. They embark on this quest together, mirroring the communal aspect of many religions. The slippers (silver in the book, ruby in the film) can be viewed as sacred objects, or relics, that assist her in her journey, providing divine protection and eventually leading her to salvation (returning home). Finally, the revelation that the Wizard is a mere mortal, and that Dorothy had the power to return home all along, imparts a spiritual lesson often found in religious narratives: the divine or the sacred is not external, but within us." If I was a student I could have easily expanded on these concepts (with or without GPT) and turned in a good essay.

joeframbach 3y ago
Genuinely curious - what religions are being described here? It doesn't match my limited understanding of any religions I'm familiar with.
- anotherman554 3y ago
  I didn't ask GPT to describe any particular religion. My prompt was "As a literary critic, describe how Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz is a religious figure." The divine being contained within I would think would match Buddhism pretty well. The reference to relics is too vague to pin down to any religion, there's probably lots of examples of it in lots of religions. If I had to defend it off the top if my head I'd compare the Ruby slippers to the "holy moly" herb Athena gives Odysseus to defend him from Circe. If anything I think GPT went wrong saying strength is one of the virtues associated with the Lion. It would be much easier to focus on courage and say he needs to learn to be like a brave apostle who says things like "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me:" My point wasn't that this essay was particularly good, necessarily, only that it was was good enough for undergraduate work.

vGPU 3y ago

I don’t know about actually writing papers, but I’ve had surprisingly good results having chatgpt rewrite things for me.