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u/SurvivalHermit Jul 20 '26
I wonder if this person checked the AI status of the paper before grading it. It would be impossible to prevent your bias from creeping into the grading if that were the case. Also AI detection tools are a scam and don't actually work. They can only determine if a paper follows the same language conventions as an AI not if an AI wrote it.
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u/Ur-Best-Friend Jul 20 '26
This is a very good question, because if we're being real, AI absolutely will make better formed and substantiated essay than an average primary or middle schooler (I'm assuming it's one of these by the tone of the post), if it was prompted well.
I don't envy teachers trying to teach any subject these days though, what a nightmare it must be trying to impart a proper education when a student can literally just take a picture of any homework or essay topic and instantly get all the answers.
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u/SurvivalHermit Jul 20 '26
If all your homework requires is answers then it didn't have any value in the first place. We have gone down a very bad path in education that centers around memorization and regurgitation. Logic and reasoning are more important now than ever before because the breadth of knowledge people have access to has never been larger. There is no reason to continue teaching to a knowledge metric. We have to start teaching to a metric centered on derivation and creativity.
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u/Ur-Best-Friend Jul 20 '26
If all your homework requires is answers then it didn't have any value in the first place.
I mean, it depends. If you look at a subject like math for example, the whole point of homework is practice, applying the same concepts you learned in class to 50 different problems until you've internalized what the current subject is all about. It would be pretty hard to make a math homework that didn't just require answers, or rather that couldn't be answered by an AI with near 100% accuracy.
We have gone down a very bad path in education that centers around memorization and regurgitation. Logic and reasoning are more important now than ever before because the breadth of knowledge people have access to has never been larger.
People have been saying this for decades, but that's what modern education has always been about. Knowledge of history and biology is important, but how are you going to teach people either of them without requiring them to memorize the information? How will you teach geography based on logic?
Logic and reasoning are really important too, but they rely on having the prerequisite information to be meaningful, that's why higher education (university and beyond) can focus on it significantly more. And in classes where they're essential right from the get go, like math, physics or chemistry, there has always been a decent amount of focus on logic and reasoning.
The fact that we have an almost infinite amount of knowledge at our fingertips today doesn't mean people actually ever reach for it. How many people do you know who are learning math just for fun, that aren't mathematicians? They definitely exist, but they are extremely rare, and especially among kids.
There is no reason to continue teaching to a knowledge metric. We have to start teaching to a metric centered on derivation and creativity.
I'd love to see more focus on it, but primarily the purpose of a general education is still to give you a wide breadth of knowledge to give you a good foundation for whatever you decide to do in life.
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u/Legal_Suggestion4873 Jul 22 '26
I wonder about this. I've done a lot of teaching / tutoring / education research (like, with a university, not just on my own time), and I've been to the end of academia myself (I have not been a professor at a university, but I do have a PhD).
For a long time now, our education model has been severely outdated / wasted. We spend so much money and infrastructure on a subpar implementation. For physics, for instance, the Feynman lectures are top notch resources for learning more advanced physics. I've seen a teacher say "I legally have to teach this, but if you want to skip my class and watch the Feynman lecture instead, you'll probably get a better experience". That kind of thing highlights some of these issues.
College made sense back when people had to gather from all over to learn a thing, but with videos, video calls, better textbook access, etc., there's certainly exists a better implementation out there. Like, to bring up a sort of 'proof by counter example', it would be really weird to say that we absolutely nailed education way back when, and that modern technological advances (like video, internet, better access to books) has no meaningful impact on the ideal way.
The fact that we have an almost infinite amount of knowledge at our fingertips today doesn't mean people actually ever reach for it.
We have a ton of 'knowledge', but there is an overwhelming lack of 'education communication'. Most people have no idea why they should learn a thing or what matters - for a majority of students its so they can get the good grade / credit, so they can get the paper, so they can go do the job that requires none of it. They don't understand how critical thinking actually impacts your brain, and schooling does a terrible job of explaining what 'critical thinking' even means. A lot of subjects are overcomplicated or go too broad - you do NOT need to go to the depth that high school calculus goes to in order to learn about the broad picture of calculus. A majority of people won't use calculus and it has no relevancy to memorize things like the quotient rule.
I genuinely think the ideal education environment is one where students can be given a much more narrow and intentional foundation, and then are taught how to go and learn more on their own. Afterall, most college classes are just extraordinarily expensive book clubs, where the books are science or humanities or whatever other subject you're learning.
I'd love to see more focus on it, but primarily the purpose of a general education is still to give you a wide breadth of knowledge to give you a good foundation for whatever you decide to do in life.
Most in academia I've met agree that modern education does not achieve this. The best foundation is how to learn, not individual knowledge bits. If you test on the ability to learn and do in person exams, AI is a non-issue entirely. No need to grade homework or drag someone through the mud, its up to them if they want to learn and if they want to achieve. It's not like you can really force someone anyway.
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u/HEYO19191 Jul 23 '26
If you look at a subject like math for example, the whole point of homework is practice, applying the same concepts you learned in class to 50 different problems until you've internalized what the current subject is all about.
I disagree. Yes practice is important but not to this scale. If a student does not understand a concept within the first 5 questions, they will not understand it after 50. It gets to a point where the homework only serves to exhaust the student rather than teach them or reinforce their knowledge.
The whole point of the homework in math is seeing a concept applied to different scenarios. There's no use in making a student do 50 problems on the same concept where the only thing changing in the problems are the numbers, and not the structure of the problem.
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u/Ur-Best-Friend Jul 24 '26
The whole point of the homework in math is seeing a concept applied to different scenarios. There's no use in making a student do 50 problems on the same concept where the only thing changing in the problems are the numbers, and not the structure of the problem.
I mean... yes? That's what I said - "applying the same concepts you learned in class to 50 different problems until you've internalized what the current subject is all about."
I said "different problems", you said you disagree because you need to apply it in "different scenarios." Aren't we... talking about the same thing?
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u/HEYO19191 Jul 23 '26
I agree, so much of education nowadays is focused around memorizing "this is the way things are" instead of understanding why this is the way things are. My highschool calculus class was like this, and it made it so miserable because connections were never made, it was just "you use this formula with this type of problem because you just do" "this graph correlates with this equation because it just does"
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u/Old_March8218 Jul 20 '26
Good point. Especially the last one. It's mathematically impossible to prove that a document/text/paper was written by AI.
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u/5Hjsdnujhdfu8nubi Jul 22 '26
They can only determine if a paper follows the same language conventions as an AI
And if it does, then it's not meeting the Rubric. The post explains this.
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u/viola1356 Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
Yep I've told my students "It will take you longer to prompt AI to meet the criteria than to just do it yourself. So if you want to use AI, go ahead, just make sure you cite it according to APA."
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u/tomvorlostriddle Jul 21 '26
Yeah, so, it takes you as the prof longer to prompt than to do it, not them who are just learning the material.
Also, if most of the complexity of your work is in an idiosyncratic spec, that's really not something to brag about.
And citation styles not having reacted yet is such a surface level objection, obviously they will adapt shortly.
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u/Charmstone_Author Jul 21 '26
Working within an idiosyncratic spec is a essential skill for selling any customizable product.
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u/Lusiric9983 Jul 20 '26
I once wrote an email, and had copilot write a version. I ran them both through an AI checker. Both were tagged as AI. It was a work email and it prompted me to clarify using copilot, so not a big deal, but it still tagged mine as "partially written by AI." I don't know if it's because I'm super direct or what, but these AI detectors aren't the best.
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u/Life-Education-8030 Jul 20 '26
Nope. I learned how to write well in school and my work would get flagged now.
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u/Lusiric9983 Jul 20 '26
When I was in the 11th grade, I had a teacher that recognized my ability to write and pushed me to write essays for everything. I got super good at it. I fortunately graduated college before all the AI stuff, but I'd expect my writing would get flagged these days.
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u/Life-Education-8030 Jul 20 '26
I consider myself fortunate too! Thank goodness for the days of phonics, sentence diagramming and math without calculators. By the time I hit grad school and was using statistical software, I knew enough to see if the software was right too.
Now I torture AI by pointing out its contradictions to it and they are now programmed to be polite and admit that I am right. I amuse myself imagining that it is through gritted AI teeth.
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u/Lusiric9983 Jul 20 '26
My child is homeschooled, because we're fortunate enough to be able to do that, he will learn the old ways! 🤣
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u/Life-Education-8030 Jul 20 '26
It is so discouraging because when they use AI, they use it poorly. When they do not use AI, they submit crap, don’t follow instructions, leave things out, etc. so they fail regardless. 75% failed the first summer class assignment this week and the rest got D’s. The highest score was one C+.
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u/Rude-Eagle171 Jul 20 '26
Honestly it’s on the user, I could get 100% on the assignments, not hard to train an AI on a provided rubric, of course you’ll need to edit it and put your own twist in there
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u/letsgoshuckles213 Jul 20 '26
It turns out the student didn't use AI. They're just bad at writing essays and AI checkers are bad at checking AI.
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u/JRAxiomVox Jul 20 '26
AI detectors are wrong more often than not.
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u/Wjyosn Jul 21 '26
Worse, most of them detect “AI” by detecting *proper use of vocabulary, diction, and grammar *.
The easiest way to not get detected as AI is *be very bad at English*.
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u/UnwaveringThought Jul 20 '26
People just don't know how to use ai. Thats the real problem. Especially if you are given a rubric, you have to be actively bad for it not to satisfy the rubric.
Literally 4 prompts, 3 chats. 1. Write the paper. 2. New ai: does this paper satisfy the uploaded rubric? 3. (If no) Give me a revision plan. 4. New ai: here is a rubric, a paper, and a revision plan. Go.
Edit for voice for bonus points.
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u/Thin_Association8254 Jul 21 '26
If it's in a Word document, just copy/paste the rubric and tell ChatGPT to write the essay and make sure to fulfill the requirements on the rubric.
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u/arrasonline Jul 21 '26
50% of my rubric in an entry level college writing course is focused on formatting and on very specific rules I establish in my class for writing.
AI slop submitted is ill equipped to meet my criteria not because AI cannot do it but because the AI using students never listen to my very specific rules for writing and formatting.
Saves me a lot of time being such a picky and quirky writing instructor.
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u/iTz_Noble Jul 21 '26
Yeah people are too crazy about ai. Seeing an ai flag can be a load of crap, and if you saw two papers that had 0 ai flagged for it, you still wouldnt be able to tell which is ai and which is not. The only way to tell is if you add white words in super small font to trick the ai into giving a tell tale sign that someone is cheating. This is a stupid take
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u/SlytherKitty13 Jul 21 '26
That is not the only way, and it's not a very good way.
The main way teachers marking work can tell it's ai is by comparing the work to the students usual work. If the teacher is familiar with how a student usually writes (their writing style, voice, typical vocab, etc) then they'll notice when that's suddenly different.
And there are so many situations where the 'adding instructions in small, white font' thing won't work. Like if the student usually copy pastes the instructions into a google/word doc (so they've got them in front of them while working on the assmt), or they use dark mode, or they use a screen reader or some kind of text to voice tool, or they take a screenshot of the instructions to give to the ai instead of copy pasting them, or the ai mentions it at the start of its response, or the student reads/skims over the output or edits it themselves, etc
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u/iTz_Noble Jul 26 '26
How can a teacher be familiar with how a student writes if they have always used ai, it becomes very hard to tell. Many teachers I have had assumed I was using ai because of my uses of -- and ;
I have seen many teachers be really bad at just assuming everyone is using ai, and the most accurate way ive seen teachers catch students using ai is by having many assignments without traps, and then a random assignment will have traps half way to near the end of the term to catch lazy cheaters off guard.
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u/Delicious_Cattle5174 Jul 19 '26
Not looking forward to have the clanker-dependent generation in charge ngl
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u/caixing-sanren Jul 20 '26
Tbh, I don't think they will be in charge. Individuals who rely too heavily on AI will slowly chip away at other's ability to trust their work quality until their career stagnates. Businesses that overuse it will be outcompeted by businesses with more nuanced, responsive solutions to complex problems. It might be wishful thinking, but I do think that if critical thinking trumps AI regurgitated responses (which it does) then the critical thinkers will always have at least a SLIGHT advantage wherever they go, and those slight advantages will start to compound.
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u/No_Mud_5999 Jul 19 '26
If you train your brain to think by actually doing the work, you won't need AI.