4 ms·

The false positive rate would kill most use cases here. Even 1/10000 false accusations of academic integrity would be too much.

berkes 3y ago
Is it bad if it's an accusation? Wouldn't it need additional data, such as actual proof, to become an allegation or even a claim or charge?
- TuringNYC 3y ago
  >> Wouldn't it need additional data, such as actual proof, to become an allegation or even a claim or charge? What the computer surfaces as an accusation becomes fact by the users of the computer. Even when the consequences are serious, this happens, an example from yesterday: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-says-ai-facial-recognition-software-falsely-idd-robbing-sunglass-h-rcna135627 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-says-ai-facial-reco... Why should we assume this would go any differently when the consequences are not as serious?
- lawlessone 3y ago
  >Wouldn't it need additional data, such as actual proof, to become an allegation or even a claim or charge? Yes but that hasn't stopped people before.
- zarzavat 3y ago
  Judging by the number of people who seem to blindly trust what ChatGPT says, yes it’s bad. A false positive rate of 1/10000 would be almost the worst case in fact: truthy enough that people believe that it works, while still creating a vast absolute number of false positives.
JoeJonathan 3y ago
Do you really think professors flag plagiarism only when it's cut and dry? Absolutely not. Plenty, if not most, flagged cases of plagiarism are ambiguous. The process at most colleges and universities typically accounts for this via something like review by an academic integrity committee.
- Dave_Rosenthal 3y ago
  Agree. I was accused twice of plagiarism by professors in college. Needless to say there was zero plagiarism involved. In both cases I wrote code that they didn't think it was likely that an Nth year college student would know how to write. In both cases it didn't go anywhere. One because they talked to me about the work and it was clear I knew my stuff, the second because the professor was certain I had cheated somehow but couldn't prove anything despite his attempts to find the code he insisted I must have found online. I'd say the existing process is already higher than 1/10000 false positive!
- TuringNYC 3y ago
  >> Do you really think professors flag plagiarism only when it's cut and dry? The problem with computer systems flagging things is they are taken as truth. Another comment on another post perfectly states this human behavior: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39118716 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39118716
pona-a 3y ago
It's still a good heuristic. If you say have a search engine facing a flood of AI generated mush, would it be too disrespectful to a couple tabloids that use genuine third world labor to downrank 0.01% of them for being probably AI generated spam? Humans shouldn't use simple heuristics like this to make such serious accusations either way.

berkes 3y ago

Is it bad if it's an accusation? Wouldn't it need additional data, such as actual proof, to become an allegation or even a claim or charge?

TuringNYC 3y ago
>> Wouldn't it need additional data, such as actual proof, to become an allegation or even a claim or charge? What the computer surfaces as an accusation becomes fact by the users of the computer. Even when the consequences are serious, this happens, an example from yesterday: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-says-ai-facial-recognition-software-falsely-idd-robbing-sunglass-h-rcna135627 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-says-ai-facial-reco... Why should we assume this would go any differently when the consequences are not as serious?
lawlessone 3y ago
>Wouldn't it need additional data, such as actual proof, to become an allegation or even a claim or charge? Yes but that hasn't stopped people before.
zarzavat 3y ago
Judging by the number of people who seem to blindly trust what ChatGPT says, yes it’s bad. A false positive rate of 1/10000 would be almost the worst case in fact: truthy enough that people believe that it works, while still creating a vast absolute number of false positives.

JoeJonathan 3y ago

Do you really think professors flag plagiarism only when it's cut and dry? Absolutely not. Plenty, if not most, flagged cases of plagiarism are ambiguous. The process at most colleges and universities typically accounts for this via something like review by an academic integrity committee.

Dave_Rosenthal 3y ago
Agree. I was accused twice of plagiarism by professors in college. Needless to say there was zero plagiarism involved. In both cases I wrote code that they didn't think it was likely that an Nth year college student would know how to write. In both cases it didn't go anywhere. One because they talked to me about the work and it was clear I knew my stuff, the second because the professor was certain I had cheated somehow but couldn't prove anything despite his attempts to find the code he insisted I must have found online. I'd say the existing process is already higher than 1/10000 false positive!
TuringNYC 3y ago
>> Do you really think professors flag plagiarism only when it's cut and dry? The problem with computer systems flagging things is they are taken as truth. Another comment on another post perfectly states this human behavior: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39118716 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39118716

pona-a 3y ago

It's still a good heuristic. If you say have a search engine facing a flood of AI generated mush, would it be too disrespectful to a couple tabloids that use genuine third world labor to downrank 0.01% of them for being probably AI generated spam? Humans shouldn't use simple heuristics like this to make such serious accusations either way.