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Harsh sentiment. Pretty soon every knowledge worker will use AI every day. Should people disclose spellcheckers powered by AI? Disclosing is not useful. Being c

by oofbey 9mo ago

Harsh sentiment. Pretty soon every knowledge worker will use AI every day. Should people disclose spellcheckers powered by AI? Disclosing is not useful. Being careful in how you use it and checking work is what matters.

ambicapter 9mo ago
> Should people disclose spellcheckers powered by AI? Thank you for that perfect example of a strawman argument! No, spellcheckers that use AI is not the main concern behind disclosing the use of AI in generating scientific papers, government reports, or any large block of nonfiction text that you paid for that is supposed to make to sense.
fisf 9mo ago
People are accountable for the results they produce using AI. So a scientist is responsible for made up sources in their paper, which is plain fraud.
- oofbey 9mo ago
  I completely agree. But “disclosing the use of AI” doesn’t solve that one bit.
  - barbazoo 9mo ago
    I don’t disclose what keyboard I use to write my code or if I applied spellcheck afterward. The result is 100% theirs.
- eichin 9mo ago
  "responsible for made up sources" leads to the hilarious idea that if you cite a paper that doesn't exist, you're now obliged to write that paper (getting it retroactively published might be a challenge though)
Proziam 9mo ago
False equivalence. This isn't about "using AI" it's about having an AI pretend to do your job. What people are pissed about is the fact their tax dollars fund fake research. It's just fraud, pure and simple. And fraud should be punished brutally, especially in these cases, because the long tail of negative effects produces enormous damage.
- freedomben 9mo ago
  I was originally thinking you were being way too harsh with your "punish criminally" take, but I must admit, you're winning me over. I think we would need to be careful to ensure we never (or realistically, very rarely) convict an innocent person, but this is in many cases outright theft/fraud when someone is making money or being "compensated" for producing work that is fraudulent. For people who think this is too harsh, just remember we aren't talking about undergrads who cheat on a course paper here. We're talking about people who were given money (often from taxpayers) that committed fraud. This is textbook white collar crime, not some kid being lazy. At a minimum we should be taking all that money back from them and barring them from ever receiving grant money again. In some cases I think fines exceeding the money they received would be appropriate.
  - Proziam 9mo ago
    Thank you for the comment! I think the negative reaction people have comes from fear of punishment for human error, but fraud (meaning the real legal term, not colloquially) requires knowledge and intent. That legal standard means that the risk of ruinous consequences for a 'lazy kid' who took a foolish shortcut is very low. It also requires that a prosecutor look at the circumstances and come to the conclusion that they can meet this standard in a courtroom. The bar is pretty high. That said, it's very important to note that fraud has a pretty high rearrest (not just did it, but got arrested for it) rate between 35-50%. So when it gets to the point that someone has taken that step, a slap on the wrist simply isn't going to work. Ultimately, when that happens every piece of work they've touched, and every piece of work that depended on their work, gets called into question. The dependency graph affected by a single fraudster can be enormous.
geremiiah 9mo ago
What they are doing is plain cheating the system to get their 3 conference papers so they can get their $150k+ job at FAANG. It's plain cheating with no value.
- barbazoo 9mo ago
  People that cheat with AI now probably found ways to cheat before as well.
- shermantanktop 9mo ago
  Cheating by people in high status positions should get the hammer. But it gets the hand-wringing what-have-we-come-to treatment instead.
- WarmWash 9mo ago
  We are only looking at one side of the equation here, in this whole thread. This feels a bit like the "LED stoplights shouldn't be used because they don't melt snow" argument.
  - mikkupikku 9mo ago
    Confront the culprit and ask for their side; you'll just get some sob story about how busy they are and how they were only using the AI to check their grammar and they just don't know how the whole thing ended up fabricated... Waste of time. Just blacklist these people, they're no better than any other scammer.
- Der_Einzige 9mo ago
  Rookie numbers. After NeurIPS main conference, you’re dumb not to ask for 300K YOY. I watched IBM pay that amount prorated to an intern with a single first author NeurIPS publication.
vimda 9mo ago
"Pretty soon every knowledge worker will use AI every day" is a wild statement considering the reporting that most companies deploying AI solutions are seeing little to no benefit, but also, there's a pretty obvious gap between spell checkers and tools that generate large parts of the document for you
PunchyHamster 9mo ago
nice job moving the goalpost from "hallucinated the research/data" to "spellchecker error"
duskdozer 9mo ago
>Pretty soon every knowledge worker will use AI every day. Maybe? There's certainly a push to force the perception of inevitability.
Sharlin 9mo ago
In general we're pretty good at drawing a line between purely editorial stuff like using a spellchecker, or even the services a professional editor (no need to acknowledge), and independent intellectual contribution (must be acknowledged). There's no slippery slope.

by oofbey 9mo ago

ambicapter 9mo ago

> Should people disclose spellcheckers powered by AI? Thank you for that perfect example of a strawman argument! No, spellcheckers that use AI is not the main concern behind disclosing the use of AI in generating scientific papers, government reports, or any large block of nonfiction text that you paid for that is supposed to make to sense.

fisf 9mo ago

People are accountable for the results they produce using AI. So a scientist is responsible for made up sources in their paper, which is plain fraud.

oofbey 9mo ago
I completely agree. But “disclosing the use of AI” doesn’t solve that one bit.
- barbazoo 9mo ago
  I don’t disclose what keyboard I use to write my code or if I applied spellcheck afterward. The result is 100% theirs.
eichin 9mo ago
"responsible for made up sources" leads to the hilarious idea that if you cite a paper that doesn't exist, you're now obliged to write that paper (getting it retroactively published might be a challenge though)

Proziam 9mo ago

False equivalence. This isn't about "using AI" it's about having an AI pretend to do your job. What people are pissed about is the fact their tax dollars fund fake research. It's just fraud, pure and simple. And fraud should be punished brutally, especially in these cases, because the long tail of negative effects produces enormous damage.

freedomben 9mo ago
I was originally thinking you were being way too harsh with your "punish criminally" take, but I must admit, you're winning me over. I think we would need to be careful to ensure we never (or realistically, very rarely) convict an innocent person, but this is in many cases outright theft/fraud when someone is making money or being "compensated" for producing work that is fraudulent. For people who think this is too harsh, just remember we aren't talking about undergrads who cheat on a course paper here. We're talking about people who were given money (often from taxpayers) that committed fraud. This is textbook white collar crime, not some kid being lazy. At a minimum we should be taking all that money back from them and barring them from ever receiving grant money again. In some cases I think fines exceeding the money they received would be appropriate.
- Proziam 9mo ago
  Thank you for the comment! I think the negative reaction people have comes from fear of punishment for human error, but fraud (meaning the real legal term, not colloquially) requires knowledge and intent. That legal standard means that the risk of ruinous consequences for a 'lazy kid' who took a foolish shortcut is very low. It also requires that a prosecutor look at the circumstances and come to the conclusion that they can meet this standard in a courtroom. The bar is pretty high. That said, it's very important to note that fraud has a pretty high rearrest (not just did it, but got arrested for it) rate between 35-50%. So when it gets to the point that someone has taken that step, a slap on the wrist simply isn't going to work. Ultimately, when that happens every piece of work they've touched, and every piece of work that depended on their work, gets called into question. The dependency graph affected by a single fraudster can be enormous.

geremiiah 9mo ago

What they are doing is plain cheating the system to get their 3 conference papers so they can get their $150k+ job at FAANG. It's plain cheating with no value.

barbazoo 9mo ago
People that cheat with AI now probably found ways to cheat before as well.
shermantanktop 9mo ago
Cheating by people in high status positions should get the hammer. But it gets the hand-wringing what-have-we-come-to treatment instead.
WarmWash 9mo ago
We are only looking at one side of the equation here, in this whole thread. This feels a bit like the "LED stoplights shouldn't be used because they don't melt snow" argument.
- mikkupikku 9mo ago
  Confront the culprit and ask for their side; you'll just get some sob story about how busy they are and how they were only using the AI to check their grammar and they just don't know how the whole thing ended up fabricated... Waste of time. Just blacklist these people, they're no better than any other scammer.
Der_Einzige 9mo ago
Rookie numbers. After NeurIPS main conference, you’re dumb not to ask for 300K YOY. I watched IBM pay that amount prorated to an intern with a single first author NeurIPS publication.

vimda 9mo ago

"Pretty soon every knowledge worker will use AI every day" is a wild statement considering the reporting that most companies deploying AI solutions are seeing little to no benefit, but also, there's a pretty obvious gap between spell checkers and tools that generate large parts of the document for you

PunchyHamster 9mo ago

nice job moving the goalpost from "hallucinated the research/data" to "spellchecker error"

duskdozer 9mo ago

>Pretty soon every knowledge worker will use AI every day. Maybe? There's certainly a push to force the perception of inevitability.

Sharlin 9mo ago

In general we're pretty good at drawing a line between purely editorial stuff like using a spellchecker, or even the services a professional editor (no need to acknowledge), and independent intellectual contribution (must be acknowledged). There's no slippery slope.