The midterm, by the way, was about the Industrial Revolution.
I get it, you spent a fortune on this class so you could have a job that will allow you to maybe retire someday. You don’t even give a shit about this class or the material, you don’t care about history and you just needed the credit. It has literally nothing to do with any of the jobs you might get in the future, if you learn nothing it won’t make a difference. If you study and try your best you still might not actually get a good grade. The temptation to cheat would be hard to resist.
All AI has done is reveal a deeper problem with college - students aren’t there to learn, they’re there to be credentialed.
Yes, degrees are credentials and sadly many people just want those instead of having any inherent interest.
But no, because those credentials are not empty words, but are supposed to mean something. You might not need to know about the industrial revolution in your job (and looking at the way our world develops right now, I would say industrial revolution and its changes in society are very relevant right now), but the credential for it is supposed to show that you are able to learn about a topic, read relevant literature and then apply that knowledge in analysing things. THAT is the goal of going to college. And most jobs (edit: that really require a certain college degree) need exactly that kind of skill. Which students don’t learn if they let a probability machine do the “thinking” for them.
Ok, but just to play daivels advocate: If you can’t tell they are cheating without tricks, can’t they do that learn+read+apply thingie using AI just as well???
I think for some things it will work out, but as we are seeing with programming: the problem isn’t apparent in surface level, but in real understanding. And if a certain task need an understanding to apply knowledge, LLM can’t help with that.
No, that’s the point of the credential for the employer. For the student, the credential is just a box you need to check that lets employers filter out the people they don’t want, and why would the student give a shit about that?
No, what you said is that the credentials are supposed to mean something, as if they mean something to everyone equally.
They don’t. They only mean something to the employer, to the student they mean time and money but not much else. For the student the point of the credential is to trick your employer into hiring you, and then you just have to keep tricking them into not firing you. People do it all the time, and they’re a pain to work with, but in that way cheating is training them for their career.
Now you’re right that there are real jobs, where being able to learn actually matters, but a lot of jobs are bullshit. A business major that’s going to fail upwards their entire lives will never need to learn anything. They could probably be illiterate and get away with it.
These comments seem to be rooted in a jaded perspective of the world.
For instance if you didn’t have a degree in say material sciences, I wouldn’t hire you to work on plasma containment engineering for a fusion reactor. And if you felt your degree in the field was meaningless, then why are you trying to get into this field where you had to put so much effort into getting into it?
Because I’ll get paid money to do it. I went to college because all the growns up said i would make twice as much money and now im watching people who failed out high school make five times the money im making in the same company because they went into sales with no degree.
We have to go back to what college always was: a luxury for rich people who want to give their kids a good time learning the classics before a lifetime of work. It simply doesn’t make sense to go into debt for college, if it’s something like medicine, then the government should be paying your way through school so you can save countless lives during your career.
In University I would hope most people in the class are there because they DO have an interest. On the other hand, if I could have cheated on organic chemistry like this, I probably would have.
On the other, other hand, we would copy eachothers work, but at least we’d change it enough so that it wouldn’t be obvious. It’s not that the new generation cheats more, it’s that they’re bad at it.
Also, we didn’t write a lot of paragraphs of text in chemistry, so maybe my experience is skewed there too
Most people are learning about the Industrial Revolution in college because they need a credit for their degree. A few people are learning history because it’s actually something they’re interested in, everyone else is interested in other classes that have nothing to do with this one. It’s just another tedious box they need to check so they don’t have to work until they die.
But would you have been able to? Ochem wouldn’t give access to laptops and just be a paper and pencil exam.
External devices would be banned from the get go so attempting to use your phone or laptop would get you a 0 for cheating.
These professors seem pretty dumb allowing all sorts of open access to devices during exams that are completely open to view and run anything and get surprised people are using AI. Why does a history exam need a computer with open access anyways. This isn’t a programming course.
I assumed their assignment was to write a graded essay or something like that. I had take-home tests in my Bachelor’s program, but they barely contributed to the final grade.
if you don’t mind, what field are you in that you were examined in ochem but you don’t use ochem? last time i’ve checked, chatbots crap the bed constantly when asked about anything that you can deduce (easily, by analogy) but can’t find, especially as text, the mistakes were either glaring or sneaky but never correct. it’s much easier to express what you mean by drawings in ochem anyway
My last ochem was during my bachelor’s, which is a painfully long time ago. Everyone had to take it. Did my masters and PhD in crystals and materials, before realizing I never wanted to do anything in academia ever again.
Now I work in workplace safety and hazardous materials handling and regulation. Which is all very chemistry-related, but involves almost no actual chemistry. So I guess it’s a bit of a copout. I’m relatively sure I could still do anything related to materials science without organic chemistry though.
Fair. I’m doing synthetic chemistry for a living, and probably i have as much use of electrochemistry or crystallography as you do have of organic chemistry. I get it is a skill with a limited utility, and i might be biased, but i don’t get why people complain about it so much. On the other hand, one of my labmates was hired by mat sci lab as a single person fire brigade to unfuck their project, ant it worked despite no organic chemistry involvement
I get it, you spent a fortune on this class so you could have a job that will allow you to maybe retire someday. You don’t even give a shit about this class or the material, you don’t care about history and you just needed the credit. It has literally nothing to do with any of the jobs you might get in the future, if you learn nothing it won’t make a difference. If you study and try your best you still might not actually get a good grade. The temptation to cheat would be hard to resist.
All AI has done is reveal a deeper problem with college - students aren’t there to learn, they’re there to be credentialed.
Yes and no.
Yes, degrees are credentials and sadly many people just want those instead of having any inherent interest.
But no, because those credentials are not empty words, but are supposed to mean something. You might not need to know about the industrial revolution in your job (and looking at the way our world develops right now, I would say industrial revolution and its changes in society are very relevant right now), but the credential for it is supposed to show that you are able to learn about a topic, read relevant literature and then apply that knowledge in analysing things. THAT is the goal of going to college. And most jobs (edit: that really require a certain college degree) need exactly that kind of skill. Which students don’t learn if they let a probability machine do the “thinking” for them.
Right, they’re supposed to mean something
Ok, but just to play daivels advocate: If you can’t tell they are cheating without tricks, can’t they do that learn+read+apply thingie using AI just as well???
That’s the question, isn’t it?
I think for some things it will work out, but as we are seeing with programming: the problem isn’t apparent in surface level, but in real understanding. And if a certain task need an understanding to apply knowledge, LLM can’t help with that.
Shit, this also reminds me of Manna, a short story about AI that starts out by micromanaging workers. In a way that is what LLMs are doing here.
Interesting story, thanks for sharing. Let’s hope something like the Australia Project is possible in our future and not only Manna.
Pro-tip: If you’re young, immigrate to Taiwan and get citizenship, then you’ll eventually be annexed by China during the collapse lol.
No, that’s the point of the credential for the employer. For the student, the credential is just a box you need to check that lets employers filter out the people they don’t want, and why would the student give a shit about that?
That’s what I said?
Because if the job really needs those skills than that student better learns fast or is fucked and will lose the job.
No, what you said is that the credentials are supposed to mean something, as if they mean something to everyone equally.
They don’t. They only mean something to the employer, to the student they mean time and money but not much else. For the student the point of the credential is to trick your employer into hiring you, and then you just have to keep tricking them into not firing you. People do it all the time, and they’re a pain to work with, but in that way cheating is training them for their career.
Now you’re right that there are real jobs, where being able to learn actually matters, but a lot of jobs are bullshit. A business major that’s going to fail upwards their entire lives will never need to learn anything. They could probably be illiterate and get away with it.
These comments seem to be rooted in a jaded perspective of the world.
For instance if you didn’t have a degree in say material sciences, I wouldn’t hire you to work on plasma containment engineering for a fusion reactor. And if you felt your degree in the field was meaningless, then why are you trying to get into this field where you had to put so much effort into getting into it?
Because I’ll get paid money to do it. I went to college because all the growns up said i would make twice as much money and now im watching people who failed out high school make five times the money im making in the same company because they went into sales with no degree.
We have to go back to what college always was: a luxury for rich people who want to give their kids a good time learning the classics before a lifetime of work. It simply doesn’t make sense to go into debt for college, if it’s something like medicine, then the government should be paying your way through school so you can save countless lives during your career.
Failure to learn about the industrial revolution is how we end up with tech workers who bitch about AI but still refuse to unionize.
In University I would hope most people in the class are there because they DO have an interest. On the other hand, if I could have cheated on organic chemistry like this, I probably would have.
On the other, other hand, we would copy eachothers work, but at least we’d change it enough so that it wouldn’t be obvious. It’s not that the new generation cheats more, it’s that they’re bad at it.
Also, we didn’t write a lot of paragraphs of text in chemistry, so maybe my experience is skewed there too
Most people are learning about the Industrial Revolution in college because they need a credit for their degree. A few people are learning history because it’s actually something they’re interested in, everyone else is interested in other classes that have nothing to do with this one. It’s just another tedious box they need to check so they don’t have to work until they die.
If you want free credit, just take management courses or social psychology stuff. History sounds like you actually need to do things.
Although, apparently it’s all graded by written essay from home, so maybe it’s not actually any effort at all.
But would you have been able to? Ochem wouldn’t give access to laptops and just be a paper and pencil exam.
External devices would be banned from the get go so attempting to use your phone or laptop would get you a 0 for cheating.
These professors seem pretty dumb allowing all sorts of open access to devices during exams that are completely open to view and run anything and get surprised people are using AI. Why does a history exam need a computer with open access anyways. This isn’t a programming course.
I assumed their assignment was to write a graded essay or something like that. I had take-home tests in my Bachelor’s program, but they barely contributed to the final grade.
if you don’t mind, what field are you in that you were examined in ochem but you don’t use ochem? last time i’ve checked, chatbots crap the bed constantly when asked about anything that you can deduce (easily, by analogy) but can’t find, especially as text, the mistakes were either glaring or sneaky but never correct. it’s much easier to express what you mean by drawings in ochem anyway
My last ochem was during my bachelor’s, which is a painfully long time ago. Everyone had to take it. Did my masters and PhD in crystals and materials, before realizing I never wanted to do anything in academia ever again.
Now I work in workplace safety and hazardous materials handling and regulation. Which is all very chemistry-related, but involves almost no actual chemistry. So I guess it’s a bit of a copout. I’m relatively sure I could still do anything related to materials science without organic chemistry though.
Fair. I’m doing synthetic chemistry for a living, and probably i have as much use of electrochemistry or crystallography as you do have of organic chemistry. I get it is a skill with a limited utility, and i might be biased, but i don’t get why people complain about it so much. On the other hand, one of my labmates was hired by mat sci lab as a single person fire brigade to unfuck their project, ant it worked despite no organic chemistry involvement
each other’s