3 ms·

When you're a student in a competitive program at a top university, graded on a curve, and you know your fellow classmates are cheating with AI, you have little

by pants2 3mo ago

When you're a student in a competitive program at a top university, graded on a curve, and you know your fellow classmates are cheating with AI, you have little choice but to do the same. Especially when jobs for new grads are harder to come by and there's more pressure to also go above and beyond with internships and side projects during your time in school. There's no way to compete without cheating.

mariusor 3mo ago
> you have little choice I personally disagree with that very hard. Deontology begins at home.
- bigstrat2003 3mo ago
  Yep. You always have a choice. If cheating is wrong, it does not become acceptable just because everyone else is doing it.
  - gedy 3mo ago
    Agreed, but it feels like a Pyrrhic victory to not cheat, then get lower scores than the cheaters.
    - dgellow 3mo ago
      Are those exams a contest? Like, they will only take the best N percentiles? Because if not, you’re competing only against yourself and should ignore others’ grades
      - em-bee 3mo ago
        if they are graded on a curve then they are competing against each other.
      - 1270018080 3mo ago
        > Are those exams a contest? Yes
      - none2585 3mo ago
        I did not go to an Ivy League but many of my classes at an alright school were graded on a curve and so C was average, B/D was one standard deviation above/below, and A/F was two.
      - ewild 3mo ago
        It's an incredibly privileged Pov to say it isn't a contest. These kids entire futures are impacted by these scores.
        wrs 3mo ago
        Well, not once the scores become meaningless because everyone assumes they cheated.
        ndriscoll 3mo ago
        Ivy League kids tend to not be facing some extreme economic precarity. In fact a decent number of them likely have enough family wealth to not need to work a day in their lives. The others are unlikely to face too much trouble over a few Bs at Brown.
        dgellow 3mo ago
        I’m literally asking. I haven’t said it’s not a contest
        technothrasher 3mo ago
        > These kids entire futures are impacted by these scores. Has that changed since I was in school? After I got my degree, not a single person or entity in the workforce ever asked for my grades. They just wanted to see the degree.
      - anigbrowl 3mo ago
        Yes they are, that's what 'graded on a curve' means. It's common in the US to give students a percentile or Z-score or T-score rather than the raw score for the examination. This was a source of massive frustration to me when I first encountered because I had no way of self-reviewing my exam performance to guess which questions I might have gotten wrong.
rsa4046 3mo ago
After retiring at 65 from a university teaching and research science career (all pre-AI), I went back to teaching, but this time teaching high school science, mostly AP STEM courses at an A-ranked public high school. The cheating/AI problem is now a crisis greater than COVID. My experience: very few students in advanced and AP classes do not cheat — largely for the reasons given above — and it takes enormous resourcefulness on the teacher's part to design coursework and examinations in which cheating through AI is not an issue. Many teachers I know have all but given up — the cost and effort required to circumvent cheating are simply too great given the already sky-high demands on teachers' time and energy. And school administrations are little help, due to thoughtless and enthusiastic reliance on software at every level. In some ways they are part of the problem. I don't know what the situation is in schools outside the US. But here it had become an arms race. [Edit: typos]
- rawgabbit 3mo ago
  Personally I believe AI has made exams and high stakes testing unworkable. Even before AI I would argue teaching to the test made high stakes testing unworkable. How grades are assigned IMO will be more like how employees are evaluated in the workplace: some metrics, some oral exams, some peer feedback, but mostly on what they produced.
  - rsa4046 3mo ago
    Yes, oral exams, content created in plain sight, project-based activities, all of these can provide a true appraisal of student understanding. But these approaches, although highly rewarding for both student and teacher, are extremely time-consuming. They also run counter to the priorities of the district, which are forever and always: student achievement on standardized tests accomplished with minimal teaching personnel. The only ones benefiting here are the corporations providing and grading the tests. To a large extent it is a sham. More importantly, IRL science is not a multiple choice test. As you state above, whether you work in industry or academia, your value is what you can produce (usually by plain hard work), what problems you can solve, your imagination, creativity, what you can create yourself or with a group. But from what I've seen thus far: AI has little place in education.
danjl 3mo ago
The Lance Armstrong defense
- watwut 3mo ago
  In his generation, only cheating cyclists could stay in teams. He was the one who created the situation, but in fact, cyclists had two choices - stop being cyclist or cheat.
  - harry8 3mo ago
    You yourself are on drugs if you think Lance Armstrong "created the situation." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_at_the_Tour_de_France#Doping_histories_of_Top-10_finishers,_1997%E2%80%932015 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_at_the_Tour_de_France#D... Note the quantity that actually got caught and with enough evidence. Lance won it 6 times without getting caught. Looking at it systematically there's no way all of the top finishers were not taking drugs (how else could they compete with the world's best who were? The advantage isn't small.) And it had clearly been going on for many years before Armstrong entered the event for the first time. I really don't care for Armstrong's yellow banded hypocrisy but blaming him for the "cheat or don't bother competing" reality lets rather a lot of people off the hook with a convenient scapegoat. But I'm sure that's all in the past and it's not like that now. Just as was said when Armstrong won 6 times while correctly stating he was the most tested athlete on the planet. Wrapping it up and tying all that to Armstrong, as has been done, stinks. He was clearly a bit player in that extensive fraud. Six titles with no meaningful positive drug test as the most tested athlete on the planet.
    - harry8 3mo ago
      If Armstrong still absolutely makes you want to vomit, that's fine. https://quotefancy.com/media/wallpaper/3840x2160/2503086-Lance-Armstrong-Quote-The-last-thing-I-ll-say-for-the-people-that.jpg https://quotefancy.com/media/wallpaper/3840x2160/2503086-Lan...
    - watwut 3mo ago
      He was literal ring leader and innovator of doping. He was also openly forcing others into doping. That is not controversial statement, but result of subsequent reports. > Lance won it 6 times without getting caught. Yes, he was doping for years before being caught. He found novel ways how to do it. > reality lets rather a lot of people off the hook with a convenient scapegoat. No it does not. It just guves credit to where it is due. But we also have track record of Lance scapegoating others.
aag 3mo ago
Schools should forbid grading on a curve. MIT does, for example. Standards should be absolute.
JumpCrisscross 3mo ago
> graded on a curve, and you know your fellow classmates are cheating with AI, you have little choice but to do the same You always have a choice. The right move, in this case, is to raise a stink to administration, donors and politicians. Hell, use AI to do it. Schools refusing to punish teaching is a problem that’s leaking into business and politics.
zaptheimpaler 3mo ago
This is bullshit and basically this kind of justification is part of the moral and ethical rot of most institutions in the US now. You do have a choice, you just want to pretend you don't to get away with it. Besides, no one outside of a few stuffy finance/quant shops ever even asked what my GPA was in college, they don't care.
- boelboel 3mo ago
  Haven't you heard if you don't get one of these jobs and get a tc of 500k+ you're destined to the permanent underclass. So cheating is the answer.
  - lotsofpulp 3mo ago
    Technically, that has been the case. You are either in an economically booming area, or an economically declining area. Even for those in the booming areas, the kids have to compete with a much wider pool of talent to be able to buy land for themselves to stay there.
yubblegum 3mo ago
I wonder if for certain fields, like finance, that itself would be a positive signal for the corporation that actually would prefer workers with quite flexible ethics and mores who are focused on "the bottom line"..

by pants2 3mo ago

mariusor 3mo ago

> you have little choice I personally disagree with that very hard. Deontology begins at home.

bigstrat2003 3mo ago
Yep. You always have a choice. If cheating is wrong, it does not become acceptable just because everyone else is doing it.
- gedy 3mo ago
  Agreed, but it feels like a Pyrrhic victory to not cheat, then get lower scores than the cheaters.
  - dgellow 3mo ago
    Are those exams a contest? Like, they will only take the best N percentiles? Because if not, you’re competing only against yourself and should ignore others’ grades
    - em-bee 3mo ago
      if they are graded on a curve then they are competing against each other.
    - 1270018080 3mo ago
      > Are those exams a contest? Yes
    - none2585 3mo ago
      I did not go to an Ivy League but many of my classes at an alright school were graded on a curve and so C was average, B/D was one standard deviation above/below, and A/F was two.
    - ewild 3mo ago
      It's an incredibly privileged Pov to say it isn't a contest. These kids entire futures are impacted by these scores.
      - wrs 3mo ago
        Well, not once the scores become meaningless because everyone assumes they cheated.
      - ndriscoll 3mo ago
        Ivy League kids tend to not be facing some extreme economic precarity. In fact a decent number of them likely have enough family wealth to not need to work a day in their lives. The others are unlikely to face too much trouble over a few Bs at Brown.
      - dgellow 3mo ago
        I’m literally asking. I haven’t said it’s not a contest
      - technothrasher 3mo ago
        > These kids entire futures are impacted by these scores. Has that changed since I was in school? After I got my degree, not a single person or entity in the workforce ever asked for my grades. They just wanted to see the degree.
    - anigbrowl 3mo ago
      Yes they are, that's what 'graded on a curve' means. It's common in the US to give students a percentile or Z-score or T-score rather than the raw score for the examination. This was a source of massive frustration to me when I first encountered because I had no way of self-reviewing my exam performance to guess which questions I might have gotten wrong.

rsa4046 3mo ago

After retiring at 65 from a university teaching and research science career (all pre-AI), I went back to teaching, but this time teaching high school science, mostly AP STEM courses at an A-ranked public high school. The cheating/AI problem is now a crisis greater than COVID. My experience: very few students in advanced and AP classes do not cheat — largely for the reasons given above — and it takes enormous resourcefulness on the teacher's part to design coursework and examinations in which cheating through AI is not an issue. Many teachers I know have all but given up — the cost and effort required to circumvent cheating are simply too great given the already sky-high demands on teachers' time and energy. And school administrations are little help, due to thoughtless and enthusiastic reliance on software at every level. In some ways they are part of the problem. I don't know what the situation is in schools outside the US. But here it had become an arms race. [Edit: typos]

rawgabbit 3mo ago
Personally I believe AI has made exams and high stakes testing unworkable. Even before AI I would argue teaching to the test made high stakes testing unworkable. How grades are assigned IMO will be more like how employees are evaluated in the workplace: some metrics, some oral exams, some peer feedback, but mostly on what they produced.
- rsa4046 3mo ago
  Yes, oral exams, content created in plain sight, project-based activities, all of these can provide a true appraisal of student understanding. But these approaches, although highly rewarding for both student and teacher, are extremely time-consuming. They also run counter to the priorities of the district, which are forever and always: student achievement on standardized tests accomplished with minimal teaching personnel. The only ones benefiting here are the corporations providing and grading the tests. To a large extent it is a sham. More importantly, IRL science is not a multiple choice test. As you state above, whether you work in industry or academia, your value is what you can produce (usually by plain hard work), what problems you can solve, your imagination, creativity, what you can create yourself or with a group. But from what I've seen thus far: AI has little place in education.

danjl 3mo ago

The Lance Armstrong defense

watwut 3mo ago
In his generation, only cheating cyclists could stay in teams. He was the one who created the situation, but in fact, cyclists had two choices - stop being cyclist or cheat.
- harry8 3mo ago
  You yourself are on drugs if you think Lance Armstrong "created the situation." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_at_the_Tour_de_France#Doping_histories_of_Top-10_finishers,_1997%E2%80%932015 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_at_the_Tour_de_France#D... Note the quantity that actually got caught and with enough evidence. Lance won it 6 times without getting caught. Looking at it systematically there's no way all of the top finishers were not taking drugs (how else could they compete with the world's best who were? The advantage isn't small.) And it had clearly been going on for many years before Armstrong entered the event for the first time. I really don't care for Armstrong's yellow banded hypocrisy but blaming him for the "cheat or don't bother competing" reality lets rather a lot of people off the hook with a convenient scapegoat. But I'm sure that's all in the past and it's not like that now. Just as was said when Armstrong won 6 times while correctly stating he was the most tested athlete on the planet. Wrapping it up and tying all that to Armstrong, as has been done, stinks. He was clearly a bit player in that extensive fraud. Six titles with no meaningful positive drug test as the most tested athlete on the planet.
  - harry8 3mo ago
    If Armstrong still absolutely makes you want to vomit, that's fine. https://quotefancy.com/media/wallpaper/3840x2160/2503086-Lance-Armstrong-Quote-The-last-thing-I-ll-say-for-the-people-that.jpg https://quotefancy.com/media/wallpaper/3840x2160/2503086-Lan...
  - watwut 3mo ago
    He was literal ring leader and innovator of doping. He was also openly forcing others into doping. That is not controversial statement, but result of subsequent reports. > Lance won it 6 times without getting caught. Yes, he was doping for years before being caught. He found novel ways how to do it. > reality lets rather a lot of people off the hook with a convenient scapegoat. No it does not. It just guves credit to where it is due. But we also have track record of Lance scapegoating others.

aag 3mo ago

Schools should forbid grading on a curve. MIT does, for example. Standards should be absolute.

JumpCrisscross 3mo ago

> graded on a curve, and you know your fellow classmates are cheating with AI, you have little choice but to do the same You always have a choice. The right move, in this case, is to raise a stink to administration, donors and politicians. Hell, use AI to do it. Schools refusing to punish teaching is a problem that’s leaking into business and politics.

zaptheimpaler 3mo ago

This is bullshit and basically this kind of justification is part of the moral and ethical rot of most institutions in the US now. You do have a choice, you just want to pretend you don't to get away with it. Besides, no one outside of a few stuffy finance/quant shops ever even asked what my GPA was in college, they don't care.

boelboel 3mo ago
Haven't you heard if you don't get one of these jobs and get a tc of 500k+ you're destined to the permanent underclass. So cheating is the answer.
- lotsofpulp 3mo ago
  Technically, that has been the case. You are either in an economically booming area, or an economically declining area. Even for those in the booming areas, the kids have to compete with a much wider pool of talent to be able to buy land for themselves to stay there.

yubblegum 3mo ago

I wonder if for certain fields, like finance, that itself would be a positive signal for the corporation that actually would prefer workers with quite flexible ethics and mores who are focused on "the bottom line"..