The summer is over, schools are back, and the data is in: ChatGPT is mainly a tool for cheating on homework.::ChatGPT traffic dropped when summer began and schools closed. Now students are back, and they’re using the AI tool again more.

  • Funderpants @lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Terrible article, let me save you all the time. Students using ChatGPT = Cheating , there you go, that’s the article.

    • Hackerman_uwu@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It isn’t cheating any more than Wikipedia is cheating and Wikipedia isn’t cheating any more than an encyclopaedia is cheating.

      Just get out of then new world if you can’t lend a hand.

      • beetus@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        So you are suggesting that a student looking up information on Wikipedia is the same level of academic dishonesty as someone turning in a paper written by chatgpt?

        What the fuck?

        • Oscar@programming.dev
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          1 year ago

          That’s not what they, or the stats, said. You can use chatgpt without plagiarizing, just like how you can use wikipedia without copy-pasting the whole article.

          • sailingbythelee@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            It’s not about plagiarizing. It’s about needing to know whether you, not ChatGPT, can actually write well. How are you going to write original research? ChatGPT can maybe sort of help write your introduction, but it can’t write about something you’ve just discovered. You have to know how to write or else you’ll never be able to write anything original. Imagine how depressing the world will be when everything you read is just AI-mass-genersted pablum imitating and simulating human experience, but not truly connected to an actual person with real emotions.

  • Gutless2615@ttrpg.network
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    1 year ago

    Homework is a tool for repetition and drudgery. Kids are in school all day. They shouldn’t need homework.

    • Someonelol
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      1 year ago

      I hate to say it but there are simply so many subjects to cover in a single day that it’s hard to reinforce the lessons learned in class within the given amount of time in a school session. Maybe if schools were structured in a way in which fewer subjects were taught each day would the lessons stick better without the need of homework.

      • PapstJL4U@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You don’t just get better at playing the piano by reading about it. Your cardio doesn’t increads by reading papers and 45min lecture is not enough for individual work in a 20 pupil glass.

      • JackFrostNCola@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I agree, if you can get a kid to read a book and actually trick them into discovering the world of fiction & non-fiction that they are interested in you have just invested in their future, there has to be no downsides to a kid wanting to read a book in bed at night rather than scroll tiktok.

    • Hackerman_uwu@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Homework is a way to get parents involved because there is literally no way to teach kids everything they need to learn at school.

      It’s a pitifully failed way to try and get parents involved because in the end the vast majority literally don’t give a shit.

      My sister is a teacher and she’s constantly on about how little time parents put into their kids education. Note that she teaches affluent kids, I’d assume this is ten times worse in homes where both parents work or single parent homes with few resources.

      • Gutless2615@ttrpg.network
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        1 year ago

        I don’t know why or where you get the idea that 8+ hours a day five days a week isn’t enough to teach kids” everything they need to know in school.” I am not anti education at all. Love school. Love university. But as someone that had to leave before the sun rose and didn’t get back until long after it set thanks to after school commitments +homework, I’ll be doing everything I can to avoid subjecting my child to that. Work life balance is important for adults, and I refuse to believe it’s not also crucial for growing minds.

    • soloner@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Fr. Just do the homework in school, proctored, if it matters so much to the teacher.

      Ultimately the kids will get a test, and it should include an essay section, which they obviously have to write on the spot. I don’t really think it matters how much homework they did or didn’t do or what tools they used to “cheat”, as long as they can perform come test day that’s what matters.

      • gohixo9650@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        do you think someone will be capable to write an essay if it is literally the first essay they ever write, since they were using AI all the previous times? This is like reading solved math equations and believing that in a test you’ll be able to solve them on the spot, without having tried to solve any by yourself before.

        • soloner@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          No! And they’ll fail, retake the class, and learn from their mistakes (relying on AI completely instead of using AI for enablement). I see no problems.

          This is something our whole generation will learn about and understand, like has already been done for email, social media, the internet, search engines, etc. Students are just the most concentrated because they are young, and this technology applies to solving homework problems.

          • sailingbythelee@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Failing a class or a year is highly disruptive all around. If a large number of students literally lose the ability to write original work come test day, is the school going to fail half the student body? No, that’s crazy talk. It would be considered a disaster by the school, the parents, and the wider society if it was widespread. Schools put rules in place to ensure that your work is your own mainly to prevent children from doing stupid things that will make them fail on test day.

    • BlueBockser@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      Repetition is how people learn to remember things and improve their skills. I fail to see how that’s bad.

      • foo@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        People learn through spaced, interleaved, varied, low stakes practice. Mass practice after a long day of work isn’t helpful

  • BetaDoggo_@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Clearly an article written to fit a headline rather than the other way around. They talk about use in education settings as a sign that the use cases are limited, despite accounting for only a 12% increase.

    In other news, pencil use is up 100% in the last month, signaling that pencils have limited use cases and are only good for cheating on homework.

    • muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Bro the capability of a pencil is a far better medium to expresses concepts. One could argue that a pencils ability to express shades of grey exceeds the capability of the pen. In some ways the pen has an effect of finality.

    • foo@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      My senior secondary board believes that students. should spend 6 hours a week per subject on top of the hours they are physicians in class. It is insane

      • phillaholic@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        what is a senior secondary board? This is more or less the average amount of time I spent on work outside of class in College.

    • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      I agree with you for most things except math. For math and math based courses you need to practice a ton to get it.

      • stufkes@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Reading and writing are no exception. You also need practice to learn foreign languages. It’s not just math

      • Sludgeyy@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Disagree.

        You can get all the practice you need during school hours.

        Maybe we should stop learning about the Ming dynasty and memorizing the Canterbury tales if we needed more time for math practice.

  • VictorPrincipum@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    “You can use AI such as ChatGPT or Copilot on your senior projects, just make sure the code works, you understand it enough to document it, and your sponsor is ok with external code use” - paraphrased from my Software Engineering department head about our senior capstone projects.

    “I have the kids ask ChatGPT for an essay and then have the (8th grade) kids treat it like a rough draft so they have practice editing it” - my English teacher Father

    The best way to handle it is to embrace and use it to augment your skills, much like calculators in math classes.

    • grabyourmotherskeys@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Both of these methods require the student to understand the work. My old man brain insists they should have to code assembly from scratch and walk through snow storms to a library for their essay research, but in reality this is likely how this technology will be used. It’s a practical approach. The 8th grade version should probably include fact checking.

      • June@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I’m thinking of LLMs like calculators when I was in school.

        It’s good to have a fundamental understanding of how it all works, but let the tool be the workhorse and just learn to validate.

        • gohixo9650@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 year ago

          you can understand how subtraction or multiplication works, but if you don’t do them repeatedly in your head and on paper you will end up needing a calculator for the most ridiculous things. Like getting change or splitting a bill with a friend, or whatever.

          • Zeoic@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            To be fair, I dont think the people growing up with calculators in class and using chat gpt will be using cash at all. Not sure the last time I have even held physical currency, honestly. While your splitting a bill part might remain, we dont really need to worry about calculating change anymore.

            • gohixo9650@discuss.tchncs.de
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              1 year ago

              this is strawman argument. Being able to do basic mathematic operations in your head has nothing to do with using cash or not. By your logic we can stop thinking at all. Calculator for mathematic operations, AI for thinking and talking. We can stop thinking at all since hey,AI is easier

            • radix@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              I can confirm I literally never calculate change anymore. The only thing I do in my head is calculate a 20% tip.

              (Obligatory screw tip culture.)

      • Moobythegoldensock@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Really it needs to start a little younger: in 5th or 6th grade they should be writing short essays in class, by hand, and then move onto outlining for larger essays, and then they can start using AI to do the drafts at home.

        • grabyourmotherskeys@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I was definitely outlining and writing essays in early grades but was on an accelerated track. My friends from the neighborhood who went to a different junior high entered high school without ever have done this. That blew my mind at the time and still does today decades later.

          • Moobythegoldensock@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            It blows mine, too. I remember having to do the outlines and hating it, but it really helps you understand the structure of an essay even if you never write that way again.

            I think outlining will actually become an important tool with generative AI. For example, I used it to generate a letter of recommendation last week. So to do that, I had to:

            • Write a prompt with enough background for the AI to work with, and include all my talking points
            • Generate the output
            • Read over everything to make sure what it generated was relevant and accurate
            • Edit the draft to reflect my voice, add a sentence or two to emphasize things I wanted to stand out, remove some of the fluff, etc.

            It still turned what was probably an hour’s worth of work into 15 minutes, but at least currently you need to understand what you’re doing to use it this way. Specifically, knowing how to outline made it easy to write a concise yet detailed prompt so I could generate what I wanted on the first try.

    • Solumbran@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      A calculator calculates. An AI bullshits.

      The only thing ChatGPT can actually do might be marketing speeches, since they are nonsensical to start with and made by things pretending to be humans.

      • foo@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        It’s arguable that most of what we generate is mostly vague partially inaccurate bullshit.

        • Solumbran@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Unless you are a rock, your brain processes information to extract meaning from it. AIs don’t.

  • no surprises@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    ChatGPT is mainly a tool for cheating on homework.

    I disagree. The chart shows a 12% growth. How does it make ChatGPT a tool that is mainly being used by students? Some of these 12% are probably people, who came back from vacations.

    • Funderpants @lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      That’s me, yup. Barely touched it over the summer, but I use it all the time to help lesson plan, invent fake case studies, and more.

    • mob@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Also, not necessarily cheating even if used for school. I have a college professor that words homework so weird, I run it through ChatGPT to “translate”

  • float@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    In many countries, schools only care about grades. I was pretty good at getting good grades by understanding what will be tested and minimizing the effort to get there. I would’ve totally used ChatGPT to do my homework.

  • Moobythegoldensock@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    However, if usage is only recovering because students are back, that may be a bad sign because it suggests there’s a limited range of use cases for ChatGPT and other AI-powered chatbots.

    Or maybe kids have always been the early adopters for computer tech?

  • pc_admin@aussie.zone
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    1 year ago

    Homework shouldn’t even exist anymore, it’s antiquated and gives kids no work/life balance. (It might actually be a conspiracy to condition them to being worked to death.)

  • Water1053@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    At work when I write certain emails or code snippets I’ll paste them into ChatGPT and ask it to make the email sound “more professional” or “optimize this code.” ChatGPT also talks to me like SHODAN from System Shock 😆

    • BlueBockser@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      I hope you know what you’re doing. That’s a good way to share company secrets with outsiders, also it’s uncertain whether you’re even legally allowed to use the resulting code.

      • Water1053@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I appreciate your concern, but no worries. The company code is structured text as I program B&R PLCs and ChatGPT is pretty useless (so far) for that kind of code. The python code I paste in is more for personal hobbies.

        • 🐍🩶🐢@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          In a similar industry. Friend used it to write Wireshark dissectors for their interface between the PLC and software system. I haven’t used ChatGTP yet, but for certain boiler plate tasks it might be useful. I used to dump tag lists and generate ladder logic with some regex and python to fix the rung numbering within Notepad++. Dumb stuff nobody wants to do by hand.

      • aleq@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Prompt better. I use it extensively and the code I get is usually a good start. But it can’t do anything.

      • 📛Maven@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        I use it quite a lot, and its code is usually either functional, or within a stone’s throw, and debugging its code is usually faster than writing something myself.

  • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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    1 year ago

    And how do your propose to stop it? The cats out of the bag, you need to design better homework.

    • IcecreamMelts@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Right?!

      Don’t tell students to write a book report, have them present one. Ask them live questions about their knowledge. It’s also a great skill to have, knowing how to present.

      It’s so simple.

    • Afghaniscran@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      I don’t understand why anyone wants to stop it. I’m a teacher and since ChatGPT came out, my job got so much easier. I will say, ahead of my examples, that I proofread everything it creates and make sure all the facts are straight before submitting anything, but it’s still a lot quicker.

      I can use it to provide feedback on students work, I use it to write up lesson plans and schemes of work, I use it to draft emails, I use it to give me ideas for activities etc.

      99.9% of the time there are parts I need to edit or delete due to irrelevance but it’s done the bulk of the work. This is the same for students work, if they don’t proofread it they will most likely hand in incorrect work.

  • specterspectre@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Handwritten assignments are going to make a comeback. It’s hard to cheat through an essay you have to write on the spot.

    • stevedidWHAT@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yeah I mean just make homework worthless and the cams everything.

      Pretty simple. College professors have been doing this forever

  • nymwit@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    discussion in here looking like old r/teenagers with predictable takes

  • ChronosWing@lemmy.zip
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    1 year ago

    It’s a godsend honestly. I just went back to school at damn near 40 and with a full time job. ChatGPT has made getting through my school work so much easier and faster. I would have never had the patience or time to do college work without it.