Re: In defence of the (tedious) student essay (The Globe and Mail (BC Edition)), Sep 04, 2023

[Nilima Nigam <nigam@math.sfu.ca>]

This is interesting as a defence of student essays. 

Unfortunately, it elides completely the fact that (a) LLM technology is super cheap and super accessible  and (b) some students are going to use it. They'll do this for the same reasons they cheat now (online 'tutors', plagiarism, etc.). It is this ability to outsource the  generation of undergraduate  word-salad which seems a central challenge to teaching right now. But the impulse/reason/desire to claim credit where none is due isn't particularly new. All of this to say: I suspect the fraction of students who are highly motivated to learn at a university is not changed by the advent of AI, and the fraction of cheaters also remains unchanged. 

I'm reading a book on plagiarism by  Scott McGill. It's actually a great deal of fun. Here's Cicero, circa 60 BCE, in a letter to Atticus, in a somewhat passive-aggressive rebuke against the latter's cheating:

'On the Kalends of June: Your boy met me as I was going to Antium, eager to leave the gladiators of Marcus Metellus behind me. He gave me a letter from you and your sketch in Greek of my consulship. When I read it, I was happy that I had given my piece, on the same topic and also written in Greek, to Lucius Cossinius to take to you. For if I had read yours first, you would be charging me with stealing from you.'

https://assets.cambridge.org/97811070/19379/excerpt/9781107019379_excerpt.pdf

cheers

Nilima

On Mon, Sep 4, 2023 at 10:34 AM Gerardo Otero <otero@sfu.ca> wrote:

Dear colleagues: I particularly liked this article about the university essay in today’s Globe and Mail. I am sending it in response to Steve DiPola’s request for suggestions.

In defence of the (tedious) student essay

As­so­ciate pro­fes­sor of po­lit­i­cal sci­ence at Brock Univer­sity. His lat­est book, with Natasha Tusikov, is The New Knowl­edge: In­for­ma­tion, Data and the Re­mak­ing of Global Power. BLAYNE HAG­GART OPIN­ION

The Globe and Mail (BC Edition)

Sep 04, 2023

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 Nilima Nigam
Professor
Dept. of Mathematics
Simon Fraser University