Organize | Ling Min, Nuka-Cola
Source | AI Frontline
There are two sides to any new technology, and so is generative AI.
College students use AI to write papers and get A every time
Recently, Urdadgirl69, a foreign college student, posted on Reddit that she used AI to write papers and complete the post-viewing assignments of movies and books, and got A for all the homework. Urdadgirl69 said that at first, she was a little ashamed, but quickly adapted to this form, and even started helping classmates with AI homework, and earned $100 from it. Today, everyone sees themselves as geniuses. Finally, Urdadgirl69 said that this post was also polished by AI.
This post quickly became popular on Twitter, and everyone found that there are not a few college students like Urdadgirl69 who use AI to write papers and homework.
A first-year student with the screen name innovate_rye said that he used AI to complete his homework in biochemistry, and his grades were very good. “I used AI to complete some simple homework. For example, in biology class, we have to learn the knowledge of biotechnology. The professor asked us to write an article and answer the five advantages and disadvantages of biotechnology. I input keywords into AI , ‘What are the five good and bad things about biotechnology?’ AI generated an article based on this sentence, and I got an A grade.” Innovate_rye said that it took at least 2 hours to write this kind of article in the past , but with AI, he only needs 20 minutes to do it.
Compared to humans, generative AI has no procrastination and can generate content quickly with just a few hints. The student population is arguably the perfect audience for generative AI: they need to write frequently and are generally internet-savvy. Generative AI is indeed a “good choice” for the student population.
Currently, the market is flooded with AI creation products that are easy to use and inexpensive. Many merchants even use free trials to attract new users and promise to quickly improve the quality of writing.
The most popular of these, the Jasper platform, costs $40 a month for a monthly subscription and generates 35,000 words. Other options like Writesonic and Sudowrite generate 30,000 words for as little as $10 per month. With the emergence of ChatGPT, students now have another choice.
AI has its limits
While AI-generated text can have perfect grammar and syntax, it’s hard to get beyond a few paragraphs. This means that the longer the content, the poorer the continuity of AI’s writing, and there is no clear logical thinking as the backbone.
At the same time, AI cannot correctly understand the facts, and the quotations, dates and ideas in the generated content are likely to be wrong. Students must carefully examine the results and correct errors in order to write persuasive essays.
Scott Graham, an associate professor of rhetoric and writing at the University of Texas at Austin, once asked his students to use AI to write a 2,200-word essay on an issue on campus. Students are free to make minor edits and format adjustments to their work, with the only rule being that most of the paper must be automatically generated by the software.
The final results showed that the AI-assisted papers were not good, and the highest quality papers only received C and C-level grades. To get an A in AI writing, students can only reformulate the content of the article in their own words, or devise narrower, more specific prompts to guide the AI to create useful output. In fact, these tasks will also take a lot of time and energy.
Graham said that AI technology can indeed help people improve their writing skills, but it also has its limitations:
“I think if students can write better with the help of AI, it’s no different from writing from scratch by themselves. The writing skills I teach and want to review are mainly reflected after the first draft is formed. I think the real talent of writers actually shows here, in the revision and editing process. So I am optimistic about AI, because I think it can provide a framework for people to better grasp the revision and editing process. trick.
Some students had a lot of trouble ordering the first draft. If they put all their energy into writing the first draft, that’s the first draft they’ll be handing in when the deadline comes. No chance to revise, no chance to edit, no chance to perfect. It would certainly be helpful if these AI systems could be used to speed up the writing of first drafts. “
AI-Assisted Writing Needs Policies
The line between using AI as a tool and using it to cheat is actually very blurry. Some educators are more open-minded when discussing this issue, and do not resist students using AI software.
According to Annette Vee, Associate Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English at the University of Pittsburgh:
“What really matters to us is how AI is changing the way we write, and how we as teachers can adapt our assignments accordingly—including proactively designing elements that work with AI. Our responsibility is to While AI is assisting, continue to examine whether students have mastered the consistent goals of writing learning. Including how students conceive, how to clarify logic, how to design communication clearly and creatively. I think AI systems will be helpful in these links, In the end, writing takes on a different form.” Vee emphasized, “In essence, writing is shaped by technology, and naturally new technical elements should not be rejected.”
However, some educators believe that AI-assisted writing needs to formulate corresponding policies, and students and teachers need to know clearly what is acceptable and what is not. For example, it is perfectly normal to use AI to automatically generate email replies, but if the content generated by AI violates academic integrity, it is not acceptable.
But trying to solve the problem of AI-assisted writing with academic policy will not be easy. Today, there is still no consensus on whether using machine-generated sentences constitutes plagiarism. Also, it is difficult to detect exactly what content is generated by AI tools. Even teachers themselves are amazed by AI’s growing technical capabilities, but some educators feel that AI language models are not as powerful as anecdotal evidence suggests.
In addition, some educators worry that AI will affect people’s habits of critical independent thinking, given that language models can be affected by biases implicit in the training data. At that time, Lauren Goodlad, a professor of English and comparative literature at Rutgers University, assumed that students would accept AI’s point of view, and they might end up simply linking Muslims with terrorism, or full of conspiracy theories.
Regardless of the policies that universities may adopt in the future, AI presents a real opportunity for academia to improve educational outcomes. If teachers want to lead this wave, they must adapt to technological changes and encourage students to maintain the habit of independent learning and independent thinking at all times, whether they use AI or not.
Reference link:
https://https://ift.tt/MWf5bAE
https://ift.tt/WGijP3I? id=1747132350287673579&wfr=spider&for=pc
(Disclaimer: This article only represents the author’s point of view, not the position of Sina.com.)
This article is reproduced from: https://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/csj/2022-12-30/doc-imxymrzf6876830.shtml
This site is only for collection, and the copyright belongs to the original author.