News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by oneTbrain23 on Sunday May 21, 2023 @08:52AM (#36020396)
In schools, my coursemates and I always plagiarised each other work. We also heavily do it via any other means like having a class pooled together funds for buying work done by outsiders. This span anything from quantum mechanics to even science fair projects. We ended passing many college course with near flying colors. What have we learnt by cheating? How to cheat better. We learnt how rephrase, rearrange assembly codes, reformat, etc. Some of us even develop program to do substitution and rephrasing. This was way before chatgpt. We did well with this skills as we apply it in corporate world plagiarising collegues works and even competitor a product. We even glorified how Samsung did it in early days of smartphone war era. I am sure my juniors in my high school and college will do the same with chatgpt. I can assure you we plagiarised and got away with it near 100% (unless some were lazy enough not to clean up their copy of plagiarise source material). Those that get caught will just have to learn to adapt. When you graduate from you college, ability to plagiarise is very important in your career (as long as non academia). You can tell if you know the persons tendency of dishonesty. If purely on work output, you are at best at coin toss or maybe those very low quality students. Back my days, we already have plagiarise detectors and even bots to detect plagiarised programming assignments. It is hard to tell. Chatgpt will adapt the output to be non perfect. Plagiariser will also adapt like my experience to de-chatgpt it. It has been done. It will be co tinue to do happen.
Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by argiopetech on Sunday May 21, 2023 @09:15AM (#36020555)
Out of genuine curiosity, what is your culture of origin? Would you say this perspective is widespread on your culture? Do you have a feel for whether it is more or less so than others?
Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by Our_Benefactors on Sunday May 21, 2023 @01:15PM (#36022937)
The poster is Chinese. Cheating is absolutely pervasive in Chinese culture. They believe that either all other cultures hold the same views as they do about cheating, or that those countries and individuals are naive and stupid for not cheating.

https://archive.is/3dcjH

Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by kgwgk on Sunday May 21, 2023 @01:24PM (#36023008)
Maybe South Korea is more likely?

> We did well with this skills as we apply it in corporate world plagiarising collegues works and even competitor a product. We even glorified how Samsung did it in early days of smartphone war era.

Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by theLiminator on Sunday May 21, 2023 @02:39PM (#36023615)
Seems more like ragebait to me tbh.
Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by _cs2017_ on Sunday May 21, 2023 @03:25PM (#36023973)
It's a questionable study. Giving the same amount of money to a person from the UK and China makes no sense given the difference in income between these countries.

Also, this conflates factors other than cheating, such as the respect respondents have for the people administering the test, the degree to which respondents treat this whole thing seriously, etc.

The fact that the study says what we'd expect, doesn't imply it's a good study.

Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by throwaway_ta on Sunday May 21, 2023 @05:12PM (#36024745)
FWIW, the 70% number of Chinese cheating students matches almost exactly with my own experience as a teaching assistant. I believe that most TAs with a sufficiently large class have made similar experiences. In general, cheating is much more rampant and organized than most people would expect. Most institutions just do not care because catching and punishing cheaters is a lot of work with little short term benefit.
Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by inconceivable on Sunday May 21, 2023 @04:17PM (#36024338)
anonymous internet poster claims to be a cheater and glorifies samsung -> he's definitely chinese

british guy publishes study which finds british people are the most honest -> definitely true, british people never lie, even though psychology is the most outrageously and rampantly un-reproduceable field of study

Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by Our_Benefactors on Sunday May 21, 2023 @05:20PM (#36024791)
> They believe that either all other cultures hold the same views as they do about cheating, or that those countries and individuals are naive and stupid for not cheating.

How is this not an endorsement of this point? Provide a source to refute this that points to a culture of honesty among Chinese.

Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by inconceivable on Sunday May 21, 2023 @11:16PM (#36027063)
i conclude that you're definitely british.
Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by sureglymop on Sunday May 21, 2023 @06:58PM (#36025395)
As a student from Europe.. I find it pretty shocking. However, I even overheard some classmates who were also trying to cheat recently. My first reaction to reading the comment was thinking if ethics are not at all taken into consideration. However, if the poster is from China it makes some sense to me. The educational system in parts of china is extremely competitive starting at a young age even.
Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by smcleod on Sunday May 21, 2023 @09:08AM (#36020510)
Why didn't you and your course mates want to learn?
Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by visarga on Sunday May 21, 2023 @09:49AM (#36020823)
Short term perspective, easier to play games than work on projects.
Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by analog31 on Sunday May 21, 2023 @04:23PM (#36024375)
Too late, they cheated through all of the prerequisites.
Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by antifa on Monday May 22, 2023 @11:01AM (#36032320)
Honestly, some classes are useless """requirements""". Most classes I wouldn't consider cheating though, because in that case the only person I'd be cheating would be myself.
Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by legutierr on Sunday May 21, 2023 @09:58AM (#36020922)
What a travesty. Why even go to school, then? Are getting good marks that much more valuable than the actual education you would receive if you didn’t cheat?

Any institution that produces this outcome has its priorities completely out of whack. And any student who willingly and energetically participates in such a system must be completely vapid, short-sighted and materialistic.

It would be a real shame for your country if this kind of behavior were common throughout. It would surely result in a situation where the most powerful and highly esteemed are without integrity.

Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by zamadatix on Sunday May 21, 2023 @10:27AM (#36021209)
Especially with low level degrees, fewer associate going to college with bettering oneself as much as meeting a checklist for a job interview or a parent's requirement for continued financial support. Many of these jobs don't inherently require being educated it's more a "well, why wouldn't we hire the person with the degree if we can" kind of situation and jobs tend to drive the family requirement more than the "fluffier" stuff about education. In these cases going to college is seen as an required obstacle by the student, not an opportunity. Any way to get out of as much of it as possible is valued more than going to learn. After all, the interest was in meeting some external requirement, not getting educated. Not to mention, for a great deal of people (by volume) getting a degree at all is an extremely difficult, if not impossible, task. Getting one and having high grades to stand out can be seen as having more rewarding than genuinely getting a degree and having poor grades.

It's not great by any means, obviously more people interested in educating themselves is better. At the same time it shouldn't be a mystery, or even something one assumes is related to a particular country, as to why people do it.

Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by lisper on Sunday May 21, 2023 @11:58AM (#36022239)
Also, the ability to appropriate someone else's work to further your own goals is actually a very useful life skill. It is arguably the foundation of capitalism.
Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by simonh on Sunday May 21, 2023 @02:13PM (#36023388)
In liberal economies you buy someone else’s work. In communism it is appropriated by the state. Source: I have family who grew up and lived in a non-capitalist worker’s utopia.
Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by lisper on Sunday May 21, 2023 @02:30PM (#36023544)
Sure. But people pay to use GPT, and people pay to have others do their homework for them. Compensation is orthogonal to the question of whether someone else did the work.
Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by zdragnar on Sunday May 21, 2023 @05:45PM (#36024972)
The word "appropriate" as a verb in colloquial American English most often implies without permission or compensation.

Certain domains, such as budgeting, use it as a synonym for "allocate" but given the context it was first used in your comment it definitely implied "taking without consent".

Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by lisper on Sunday May 21, 2023 @10:45PM (#36026874)
Yes, I know. The point I'm trying to make is that there is no salient difference between an employer hiring an employee to do the work and a student doing the same. Students typically do not actually steal the work that they pass off as their own, they usually pay for it. But for some reason, when a student does it it's considered underhanded whereas when an employer does it it's considered a normal business transaction.
Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by zamadatix on Monday May 22, 2023 @02:45PM (#36035150)
This carries the assumption things like "school work" and "business work" are inherently fungible on the basis they are both types of work. Dropping the assumption for a moment, it seems reasonable there may be more than one goal of or type of work, and that these goals/types might not be interchangeable with each other. This view of the difference is only possible if you start with the earnest question of "what's the difference supposed to be" rather than asserting a conversation along the lines of "these are the same, so why are we treating them different".

Taking this approach, many might find school work is, largely, effort done to grade a level of understanding the individual has of the content. On the other hand, one might find business work is, largely, effort done to accomplish a customer's request. Additional less common types of each may come up as well, and there are, of course, exceptions to the main theme of each. In general though, I think you'd agree swapping the goals to say "school work is effort done to grade whether someone understands the content while business work is effort done to see if the particular person you make the request to is able to complete it on their own" seems rather unlikely in comparison. Because of this, swapping who does the work in each case results in different treatments.

Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by lisper on Monday May 22, 2023 @10:06PM (#36038963)
> This carries the assumption things like "school work" and "business work" are inherently fungible on the basis they are both types of work.

No, the assumption is that the purpose of education is to prepare you to be able to function in the real world. IMHO learning how to get other people to do your work for you is the single most valuable skill one could possibly acquire.

Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by zamadatix on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @12:13AM (#36039737)
There can be more than one assumption carried so why not judge each on their merits instead. Taking this other line of thought, it could definitely be truer in a vocational college or work placement type education but less so in a typical college education. Traditional college doesn't even come with the assumption you'll ever leave academia to go out into "the real world" to make your living, or that you have an actionable goal beyond being interested in the first place, let alone the assumption it should be the only goal ever considered. An easy way to see this take is not the actual primary goal of college is the self-apparent conflict of such activity being seen as underhanded in the first place.

Even if we took this line of thought as the truth though, also came to an agreement this is the most valuable skill of all to teach, and also took it as being universally good to do regardless of context, what's the reasoning for assuming college only seeks to teach and grade success on a single skill in the first place?

Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by lisper on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @07:56AM (#36043036)
> Traditional college doesn't even come with the assumption you'll ever leave academia

Yes, and this is exactly the problem, because in point of actual fact most people who go to college do eventually leave. And if you think about this even for a moment, it has to be that way because someone has to do the actual work required to maintain the the civilization that makes college possible in the first place.

Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by Ekaros on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @07:58AM (#36043065)
It is interesting that in Finnish university there was actually possibility to enter a track aiming at PhD from the start. With more rigorous math and other things. So you could work towards just Master's Degree or PhD from start. With different course load.
Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by simonh on Sunday May 21, 2023 @06:25PM (#36025207)
Someone else baked my bread, made may car and built my house and I paid for all of them. So are you saying a reasonable description of the state of affairs is that I appropriated those things?

Liberal economics is based on several freedoms. To sell one’s labour, to buy the labour of others, to own property and to freely associate with others on economic activities. Put together, and with a fair legal system to regulate it, and that’s capitalism. Which of those freedoms do you disagree with and why?

Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by lisper on Sunday May 21, 2023 @10:41PM (#36026846)
> Someone else baked my bread, made may car and built my house and I paid for all of them.

That's true. But, with the possible exception of the bread, you did not pay the people who did the work, you paid someone who appropriated their work and sold it to you as their own.

Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by simonh on Monday May 22, 2023 @01:07AM (#36027671)
And that person paid, someone, who, paid someone, etc, who paid them. As it happens, I’m directly paying people to work on my house right now.

I’m reading definitions of appropriation, and I don’t see the applicability. The bit about ‘without permission’ doesn’t seem to apply. I’m not taking anything, they offered their labour for sale.

Can you describe how a civilisation might function without appropriation as you define it?

Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by lisper on Monday May 22, 2023 @09:55AM (#36031512)
There isn't a word in English that expresses the meaning I'm trying to convey. The point is that if a student hires someone to do their homework for them, that is considered "cheating" while if an employer does the same thing it isn't. If you have a suggestion for a better word to describe what the student is doing that captures the negative connotation associated with "cheating", I'm all ears.
Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by t0suj4 on Sunday May 21, 2023 @10:15AM (#36021068)
From talking to a handful of people it is usually to fulfill someone else's expectations. If the goals aren't aligned ethics don't matter, the student doesn't want to be in that school anyway.

Cheating is the easy way to get away from that situation. And if the student is behind, it's the only way.

Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by renewiltord on Sunday May 21, 2023 @12:07PM (#36022318)
Why? Presumably it's the gate to the job they want. And they want the job so they have to cross the gate.
Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by AnthonyMouse on Sunday May 21, 2023 @12:15PM (#36022383)
> Are getting good marks that much more valuable than the actual education you would receive if you didn’t cheat?

The problem here is the incentive structure. The nature of grades is that some people will get As and some people will get Cs. If you get Cs, you might like to get As, but maybe you can't for some reason, from lack of intelligence to other time commitments to alcoholism.

Then your choice is to get a C on your own or maybe get a B+ by cheating. Given the same amount of learning, getting a better grade is better, so the only real incentive not to do it is the risk of getting caught. Some of the old methods for this were pretty unambiguous. If you submit the exact same essay as another student, or one that has been on the internet for ten years, what other explanation is there?

Rich kids would avoid this by paying someone else to do it for them. That has always been a problem. But now the cost of getting "someone else" to do it is approaching zero when the someone else is AI, so the problem spreads. But attempting to detect it with methods that have false positives is worthless.

On the other hand, testing students on their ability to do something that ChatGPT can do just as well? Maybe that's worthless too, because that's no longer a marketable skill when your future boss can get ChatGPT to do it too. So what they need to do is change the test to test for the thing the student is expected to be able to do better than the AI.

Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by andai on Sunday May 21, 2023 @03:33PM (#36024044)
>what they need to do is change the test to test for the thing the student is expected to be able to do better than the AI

Do such expectations still exist? Are they expected to remain for very long?

Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by AnthonyMouse on Monday May 22, 2023 @12:38PM (#36033620)
Clearly they do.

Have you taken some time to play with these things? Try the biggest LLaMA model that will fit in RAM on your computer. (128GB of DDR4 is around $200 and will just fit the big one without quantizing, though it won't be super fast.)

There are things they're good at. Search engine-like tasks in particular, if you're willing verify the output. They're great at providing hints for further reading.

Now try to get it to develop a new kind of battery with a longer service lifetime or lower manufacturing cost per unit energy storage. Ask it to write code to do something complex and uncommon instead of something similar to what it was trained on a thousand examples of. Have it describe a new class of security concern, like Spectre or rainbow tables before they were known.

People can do those things, and have done, and those are some of the best things we can teach people how to do because they're incredibly useful. Maybe writing minor variants on common existing boilerplate code isn't something we need people to spend a lot of time on anymore, and so isn't the thing we should be testing if they know how to do.

Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by hbarka on Sunday May 21, 2023 @12:20PM (#36022435)
Too bad this “cheater” failed to learn about grammatical errors.
Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by gadflyinyoureye on Sunday May 21, 2023 @01:40PM (#36023149)
Or it was ChatGPT trying to fool you.
Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by simonh on Sunday May 21, 2023 @02:15PM (#36023404)
It seems pretty clear they are a non native English speaker.
Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by daveguy on Sunday May 21, 2023 @02:35PM (#36023584)
oneTbrain... What does the T stand for? I can only think of one appropriate acronym.
Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by skissane on Monday May 22, 2023 @02:54AM (#36028257)
At university, my degree had this mandatory software engineering course for which there was a group assignment. You had to pick a project and "implement" it as a group. You weren't expected to write any code though - only produce a requirements spec, design spec, project plan, UML diagrams, etc – the group was marked on those specs/plans. You had to choose a software development methodology and justify why it was the right choice for your project.

The lecturer told us very clearly "DO NOT LOOK AT PREVIOUS YEARS ASSIGNMENTS". I was a little naughty, I asked a friend who did it the year before if I could have her group's assignment to read, because they'd got near-perfect marks. I didn't copy anything from it, I just read it to get a better idea of what was expected.

One guy in our group, he was really late to contribute his section of the assignment. When he finally gave it to me to read, I realised he'd just copied my friend's assignment from the previous year – either she'd given it to him also, or someone else in her group had. He tried to cover up his copying by rewording sentences, but it was very obvious – every paragraph made the same points in the same order, using the same (or very similar) word choices. Added to that, a lot of his attempts to reword it, the end result didn't even make much sense – some sentences, all he'd done was transform good grammar into bad.

I was angry and felt like reporting him. But, the only way I knew he was cheating was because I'd looked at a previous group's assignment, against explicit instructions not to – I couldn't see a way to get him in trouble without getting myself in trouble. In hindsight, I probably could have shown it to my friend and then got her to claim she'd spotted the plagiarism instead of me, but I didn't think of that at the time. Instead I just threw it out and redid it from scratch myself. He got the same marks as everyone else on the group assignment, without having contributed anything except a poor attempt at plagiarism.

Re:GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers by tatrajim on Monday May 22, 2023 @12:18PM (#36033360)
Until one gets caught. Teaching at SNU in Korea -- my students among the brightest minds of their generation -- I was shocked to catch a rank plagiarist, who copied most of an essay out of a book s/he believed beyond easy checking. Suffice it to say that student will doubtless always regret being too lacking in academic integrity to complete a project fairly. Cheating is the hallmark of an inferior intellect.