‘But there is a difference between recognising AI use and proving its use. So I tried an experiment. … I received 122 paper submissions. Of those, the Trojan horse easily identified 33 AI-generated papers. I sent these stats to all the students and gave them the opportunity to admit to using AI before they were locked into failing the class. Another 14 outed themselves. In other words, nearly 39% of the submissions were at least partially written by AI.‘

Article archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20251125225915/https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/set-trap-to-catch-students-cheating-ai_uk_691f20d1e4b00ed8a94f4c01

  • Alaknár@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    57·
    8 hours ago

    Let me tell you why the Trojan horse worked. It is because students do not know what they do not know. My hidden text asked them to write the paper “from a Marxist perspective”. Since the events in the book had little to do with the later development of Marxism, I thought the resulting essay might raise a red flag with students, but it didn’t.

    I had at least eight students come to my office to make their case against the allegations, but not a single one of them could explain to me what Marxism is, how it worked as an analytical lens or how it even made its way into their papers they claimed to have written. The most shocking part was that apparently, when ChatGPT read the prompt, it even directly asked if it should include Marxism, and they all said yes. As one student said to me, “I thought it sounded smart.”

    Christ…

    • quick_snail@feddit.nl
      51·
      5 hours ago

      Yeah, those students deserve to fail.

      I assume he taught what Marxism is in the class, yeah?

    • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
      88·
      7 hours ago

      ". My hidden text asked them to write the paper “from a Marxist perspective”

      Freshmen.

      That’s a dangerous proof.

      He could have said to write from a zagnoore brandle-frujt perspective. Some would have scanned the assignment, ignored the part they didn’t understand, and kept chooching right along. Many students would rather try to figure it out than sound stupid in class or risk the spotlight of social interaction.

      Interrogating each of them on the material is the only safe way.

      • SippyCup@lemmy.ml
        13·
        5 hours ago

        The Trojan worked because the students who read the assignment would not have seen the reference to Marxism. Only by copy pasting the text in to another field would that show up.

        • krooklochurm@lemmy.ca
          8·
          5 hours ago

          The article mentions that he gave them a chance to explain why they chose to write it from a Marxist perspective and none of the students even knew what Marxism was.

          He gave students an out in the event they actually did write from a Marxist pov

        • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
          31·
          5 hours ago

          You’re assuming the freshmen would recognize a reference to marxism and not ignore that part because they didn’t understand. It’s what inexperienced students do

          • AlfredoJohn@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            2·
            4 hours ago

            He made it hidden text in the assignment, i.e im guessing he made the text the same color as the background. Only when one copied the text and pasted it as instructions for a prompt would it be seen. Hence it was a Trojan horse on the assignment where those not using ai blatantly would not find it.

          • SippyCup@lemmy.ml
            1·
            4 hours ago

            I’m not assuming a damn thing. He literally made it impossible to see the reference to Marxism unless you copy pasted the text in to another field. Like you would do if you were feeding it to an AI. Think very small white font.

      • Jankatarch@lemmy.world
        5·
        5 hours ago

        Honestly interrogating each one on the material would be best but costly. Some classes have 80 students and professors have more than one class.

        Also rest of the article says he asked students objecting accusations to tell what Marxism is and they admitted afterwards.

        Apparently chatgpt asked “are you sure you want marxist perspective” as topic is older and not that directly related to marxism. One said they picked yes because quote on quote “it sounded smart.”

        • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
          2·
          5 hours ago

          Also rest of the article says he asked students objecting accusations to tell what Marxism is and they admitted afterwards.

          Yes, I read it. All of it.

          He definitely caught a number of them, but he called it proof, it should NOT be treated as proof, an indicator at best. If it were proof he could just fail them all and not catch false positives.

          Totally agree about the number of people to interview being expensive. But it is more adequate as proof.

          What he didn’t do wasn’t wrong, but he can’t count on that to be a point to fail.

          • AlfredoJohn@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            2·
            4 hours ago

            He definitely caught a number of them, but he called it proof, it should NOT be treated as proof, an indicator at best. If it were proof he could just fail them all and not catch false positives.

            So you frequently wrote your papers from a Marxists perspective randomly when it had no relevance to the topic at hand? He hid the text by making it the same color as the background in the assignment so only when one copy and pasted the assignment or attached the file to their prompt would it be picked up. The only real false positives would be those staunchly Marxists students or someone using a screen reader. Which I think if you are inserting Marxism into random essays that are not relevant you probably are going to be bringing it up constantly in every setting you can and would also be able to explain it. It definitely is a reason to be failed on an assignment if he caught you with this.