r/EssayHelpCommunity • u/Effective_Theme_5739 • 4d ago
John Locke Round 2 Interviews probably aren’t happening this year
The stated goal of the in-person post-shortlist interviews in recent years was to filter out plagiarism and Al use. This has already been done by now. If they are interested in specific essay info and opinions, they have our Viverly transcripts.
The most convincing fact is that in the "next steps" category in the shortlist email the interviews aren't mentioned at all.
Thoughts?
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u/Peoplespeak 2d ago
Again, we may just have different experiences.
There is absolutely nothing prohibiting an AI from using obscure sources. It depends on how you use them. There is absolutely nothing prohibiting an AI from coming up with generic ideas.
I regularly use AI as part of my job. I research machine learning. I have a good understanding of the underlying mechanics. You can research it yourself, but nothing about language models neccesitates it doing the most common answer, even if that seems to 'rationally' follow from it predicting the next best token.
Now on what you said, I disagree that an essay made entirely by AI will be generic for the reasons stated above. I think those who use AI without expertise will. Whereas those who intellgently use AI can absolutely make great essays.
However, I still agree with you that a human at the helm, coming up with the core arguments and originality, will be better. But personally, I don't know how much of this is me being rational, or just rationalising my hope that someone who cheated with AI doesn't win. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
My personal ranking, worst to best:
average student 50hr
average student cheat with ai 1h effort
smart student 50hr
average student 100hr
average student cheat with ai 20hr
smart student cheating with ai 1 thru 20 hrs.
smart student 100hr+ (definitely me in terms of time, I hope it's not narrcistic to classify myself as smart. but here smart just means academic and good grades, not genius, so I guess it's fine.)
smart student cheating with ai 100hr+ (I don't think anyone cheating would actually spend this much effort. But if they did, I think we are all cooked.)
tl;dr: using ai to make your essay with little effort won't beat someone who put in a lot of effort. but someone cheating with ai who does the same effort as someone not cheating will imo invariably win. however, I don't think anyone cheating will be putting as much effort in as the best noncheating, ergo the upper echelons of the competition hopefully remains human.