AI makes the humanities more important, but also a lot weirder

Re:AI makes the humanities more important, but also a lot we... by throwaway75 on Tuesday June 03, 2025 @06:44AM (#44168482)

What is the general take on the ethics of using AI as a much more powerful search engine? For example, "Find all occurences in the text where Odysseus' will is overridden by the Gods." The question is not something that would be directly set by an instructor, but might be required to substantiate an interpretation that a student is aiming for.

Finding something like this is difficult and requires reading the text closely. But with AI, you could get away by reading around the passages returned by AI.

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Re:AI makes the humanities more important, but also a lot we... by pasc1878 on Tuesday June 03, 2025 @06:47AM (#44168495)

Will the AI find ALL the occurrences. Finding hallucinated ones is OK here as the user can check each one.

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Re:AI makes the humanities more important, but also a lot we... by throwaway75 on Tuesday June 03, 2025 @07:14AM (#44168696)

Perhaps not. But it'll probably find sufficient passages/instances that are useful.

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Re:AI makes the humanities more important, but also a lot we... by pasc1878 on Tuesday June 03, 2025 @07:21AM (#44168753)

Yes but the question did say ALL.

Finding some yes it might well be quicker than a manual read.

So it depends on what the actual requirement is.

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Re:AI makes the humanities more important, but also a lot we... by throwaway75 on Tuesday June 03, 2025 @07:33AM (#44168855)

Let's say sufficient instances for the student to prove his/her point - the student used "all" in the AI prompt, but really meant as many as possible from which they could pick and choose. Is it ethical or should it be viewed as cheating?

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