A whole new ballgame in cheating. Introducing ChatGPT

[Antiphon1]

In my experience, students took it for granted that computerized resources such as autocorrect, Wikipedia, Google Translate, etc were correct and reliable. So if they tried to use ChatGPT, I'm not sure how many would think critically about its product, much less feel they could correct, improve or adapt it in any way.

Sounds like a great teachable.moment!  This is exactly why tools like this should be integrated rather than banned.

Agreed.

During my doctoral program I critiqued an article that my program director had recommended. He turned beet red. "It's peer-reveiwed." So... I'm not allowed to question the method or findings?

That's very strange. In my field, what you're mostly learning to do as a grad student is criticize everything. It eventually becomes a bit of a tic-you don't have to tear everything down-but it's a crucial part of learning how to your own work.

It's not so much that you're allowed or not allowed to offer criticism but that your program director didn't consider you a peer. 

[Caracal]

In my experience, students took it for granted that computerized resources such as autocorrect, Wikipedia, Google Translate, etc were correct and reliable. So if they tried to use ChatGPT, I'm not sure how many would think critically about its product, much less feel they could correct, improve or adapt it in any way.

Sounds like a great teachable.moment!  This is exactly why tools like this should be integrated rather than banned.

Agreed.

During my doctoral program I critiqued an article that my program director had recommended. He turned beet red. "It's peer-reveiwed." So... I'm not allowed to question the method or findings?

That's very strange. In my field, what you're mostly learning to do as a grad student is criticize everything. It eventually becomes a bit of a tic-you don't have to tear everything down-but it's a crucial part of learning how to your own work.

It's not so much that you're allowed or not allowed to offer criticism but that your program director didn't consider you a peer.

Which is terrible for training and professionalization. I've never taught grad students, but I'm sure it involves a fair amount of internal eye rolling when someone who has never written anything more advanced than an undergrad thesis makes some sweeping and unreasonable critique of a very good book or article. But, really there's no way to train people to become academics without treating them as colleagues in the profession who get to offer criticism. Obviously, you probably want to nudge them eventually into learning how to be more sensible and fair about their critiques, but you do that by treating them like colleagues, not underlings who are supposed to just accept things based on authority.

[Stockmann]

In my experience, students took it for granted that computerized resources such as autocorrect, Wikipedia, Google Translate, etc were correct and reliable. So if they tried to use ChatGPT, I'm not sure how many would think critically about its product, much less feel they could correct, improve or adapt it in any way.

Sounds like a great teachable.moment!  This is exactly why tools like this should be integrated rather than banned.

Agreed.

During my doctoral program I critiqued an article that my program director had recommended. He turned beet red. "It's peer-reveiwed." So... I'm not allowed to question the method or findings?

That's very strange. In my field, what you're mostly learning to do as a grad student is criticize everything. It eventually becomes a bit of a tic-you don't have to tear everything down-but it's a crucial part of learning how to your own work.

It's not so much that you're allowed or not allowed to offer criticism but that your program director didn't consider you a peer.

Which is a very unscientific attitude. Peer review is very fallible, and critiques of the method or findings should be addressed on their merits. Obviously if the critique is just "I don't like it" then I'd automatically defer to the peer review but otherwise it's just "magister dixit."

[ciao_yall]

In my experience, students took it for granted that computerized resources such as autocorrect, Wikipedia, Google Translate, etc were correct and reliable. So if they tried to use ChatGPT, I'm not sure how many would think critically about its product, much less feel they could correct, improve or adapt it in any way.

Sounds like a great teachable.moment!  This is exactly why tools like this should be integrated rather than banned.

Agreed.

During my doctoral program I critiqued an article that my program director had recommended. He turned beet red. "It's peer-reveiwed." So... I'm not allowed to question the method or findings?

That's very strange. In my field, what you're mostly learning to do as a grad student is criticize everything. It eventually becomes a bit of a tic-you don't have to tear everything down-but it's a crucial part of learning how to your own work.

I found out later he was pushing policies at the State level that were exactly the opposite of what I had been researching for my dissertation. So when he cherry-picked articles that supported his position and I thought I was being diplomatic in pointing out that this particular article had a different focus and subject, therefore conclusions might not be applicable.

The same guy also told me I didn't know enough about economics to raise general basic subject matter. I could hear him clench up over the phone when I told him that not only was it my undergrad degree but I have a Master's in Business and took quite a bit of advanced econ topics then. Did he need me to clarify more for a general audience?

[Antiphon1]

In my experience, students took it for granted that computerized resources such as autocorrect, Wikipedia, Google Translate, etc were correct and reliable. So if they tried to use ChatGPT, I'm not sure how many would think critically about its product, much less feel they could correct, improve or adapt it in any way.

Sounds like a great teachable.moment!  This is exactly why tools like this should be integrated rather than banned.

Agreed.

During my doctoral program I critiqued an article that my program director had recommended. He turned beet red. "It's peer-reveiwed." So... I'm not allowed to question the method or findings?

That's very strange. In my field, what you're mostly learning to do as a grad student is criticize everything. It eventually becomes a bit of a tic-you don't have to tear everything down-but it's a crucial part of learning how to your own work.

It's not so much that you're allowed or not allowed to offer criticism but that your program director didn't consider you a peer.

Which is a very unscientific attitude. Peer review is very fallible, and critiques of the method or findings should be addressed on their merits. Obviously if the critique is just "I don't like it" then I'd automatically defer to the peer review but otherwise it's just "magister dixit."

Yeah, egos are alive and well across academia. 

[MarathonRunner]

I defended my dissertation on Tuesday, and despite the fact that two papers have been published, the examiners still had plenty of questions and comments on those two papers. Peer review is a quality check, typically, but doesn't catch all issues, and allows some truly awful/unscientific papers to be published.

[Parasaurolophus]

I defended my dissertation on Tuesday, and despite the fact that two papers have been published, the examiners still had plenty of questions and comments on those two papers. Peer review is a quality check, typically, but doesn't catch all issues, and allows some truly awful/unscientific papers to be published.

Congratulations!

[Wahoo Redux]

A Texas professor failed more than half of his class after ChatGPT falsely claimed it wrote their papers

[Antiphon1]

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/education/schools/austin-schools-chatgpt/269-b1ddb10d-63ce-41b5-ab4b-e1676d9bb049

And this is how it is being used in high school.

[apl68]

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/education/schools/austin-schools-chatgpt/269-b1ddb10d-63ce-41b5-ab4b-e1676d9bb049

And this is how it is being used in high school.

The thing that disturbs me most about the relentless parade of new information technologies is that each one of them, intentionally or not, turns into a huge set of educational and social experiments.  And the results of these experiments have not by and large been encouraging. 

[Antiphon1]

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/education/schools/austin-schools-chatgpt/269-b1ddb10d-63ce-41b5-ab4b-e1676d9bb049

And this is how it is being used in high school.

The thing that disturbs me most about the relentless parade of new information technologies is that each one of them, intentionally or not, turns into a huge set of educational and social experiments.  And the results of these experiments have not by and large been encouraging.

The saddest part of this story is the student who uses the AI generated writing as a guide without knowing or being warned that: 1. inappropriate paraphrase is still plagiarism even when you are plagiarizing a plagiarist, and 2. the AI generated writing can be and almost ways is riddled with inaccuracies.  How on this good green earth did this student get this far into high school without being flagged and enrolled into a writing intervention program?  I'm pretty sure I know the answer to that question. 

[Caracal]

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/education/schools/austin-schools-chatgpt/269-b1ddb10d-63ce-41b5-ab4b-e1676d9bb049

And this is how it is being used in high school.

The thing that disturbs me most about the relentless parade of new information technologies is that each one of them, intentionally or not, turns into a huge set of educational and social experiments.  And the results of these experiments have not by and large been encouraging.

I mean, this is kind of how the world works, and how it worked long before the internet. Stuff changes and, by and large, it makes people nervous. People have been decrying the effects of new information technology at least since the printing press, and probably long before. Heck, sometimes they probably had a point, but it's always a good idea to be skeptical of these declension narratives that academics are so inclined to create.

[apl68]

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/education/schools/austin-schools-chatgpt/269-b1ddb10d-63ce-41b5-ab4b-e1676d9bb049

And this is how it is being used in high school.

The thing that disturbs me most about the relentless parade of new information technologies is that each one of them, intentionally or not, turns into a huge set of educational and social experiments.  And the results of these experiments have not by and large been encouraging.

I mean, this is kind of how the world works, and how it worked long before the internet. Stuff changes and, by and large, it makes people nervous. People have been decrying the effects of new information technology at least since the printing press, and probably long before. Heck, sometimes they probably had a point, but it's always a good idea to be skeptical of these declension narratives that academics are so inclined to create.

Yeah, I know.  I'm far too well-studied in history to imagine past golden ages and such.  But precisely because I have a lot of historical perspective, I believe that this time it's different.  This time I really believe we see powerful and mounting evidence that our technologies and the way we use them are destroying our environment and our society and institutions.  The pace of change is finally outrunning our ability to adapt to it.

[Antiphon1]

When I initially saw.the report, my thought was, "Huh.  How could this work as a tool to help students better understand the material?"  Then I realized that the bot was just a giant google search that has no context or internal critical analysis.  I'm afraid the process might be worse than the word salad students sometimes think passes for research.  And, yes, it's just another hurdle to jump.  I'm hoping we can figure out how to corral the tool before it goes the way of the social media wild, wild west. 

[Kron3007]

When I initially saw.the report, my thought was, "Huh.  How could this work as a tool to help students better understand the material?"  Then I realized that the bot was just a giant google search that has no context or internal critical analysis.  I'm afraid the process might be worse than the word salad students sometimes think passes for research.  And, yes, it's just another hurdle to jump.  I'm hoping we can figure out how to corral the tool before it goes the way of the social media wild, wild west.

It is a far cry from a giant google search IMO. Yes, it does a giant google search, but then compiles it into something variably coherent.  This is exactly what my students do as well.

It is also worth noting that it is continually improving and can do other things such as write code (very useful sometimes). 

Dismiss at your own peril.