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Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

(www.bloomberg.com)
427 points JumpCrisscross | 2 comments | 20 Oct 24 17:26 UTC | HN request time: 0.397s | source
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teekert ◴[21 Oct 24 09:16 UTC] No.41902170[source]▶
FWIW, I'm a consultant for a large University hospital, and Dutch. My PhD thesis, years ago, got the remark: "Should have checked with a native speaker."

So, now I use ChatGPT to check my English. I just write what I want to write than ask it to make my text more "More concise, business-like and not so American" (yeah the thing is by default as ultra enthusiastic as an American waiter). And 9 out of 10 times it says what I want to say but better than I wrote myself, and in much less words and better English.

I don't think it took less time to write my report, but it is much much better than I could have made alone.

AI detector may go off (or it goes on? of is it of? Idk, perhaps I should ask Chat ;)), but it is about as useful as a spell-check detector.

It's a Large Language Model, you should just is like that, it is not a Large Fact Model. But if you're a teacher you should be a good bullshit detector, right?

If I'm every checking some student's report, you may get this feedback: For god's sake, check the language with ChatGPT, but for God's sake check the fact in some other way.

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1. marcelsalathe ◴[21 Oct 24 12:04 UTC] No.41903222[source]▶
I completely agree. LLMs are incredibly useful for improving the flow and structure of an argument, not just for non-native speakers, but even for native English speakers.

Making texts more accessible through clear language and well-structured arguments is a valuable service to the reader, and I applaud anyone who leverages LLMs to achieve that. I do the same myself.

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2. MetaWhirledPeas ◴[21 Oct 24 16:00 UTC] No.41905523[source]▶
Yes it's a valuable service but we should also be aware that it puts more and more weight on written language and less weight on spoken language. Being able to write clearly is one thing, but being able to converse verbally with another individual is another entirely, and both have value.

With students, historically we have always assumed that written communication was the more challenging skill and our tests were arranged thusly. But we're in a new place now where the inability to verbally converse is a real hurdle to overcome. Maybe we should rethink how we teach and test.