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#71

Politics, Society and News. / Re: Simple Known Dangers with ...

Last post by Jason - July 14, 2025, 06:54:33 PM

The paper also had to summarize the state of the art on that topic. It worked very well and probably cut the rate of plagiarism to zero or near zero. But I'm not sure that AI couldn't handle this; I never had to find out.

Unfortunately, that is one of the things that AI is excellent at. What it wouldn't be good at is writing the essay in the student's voice. But unless you have your students writing several essays and you don't have too many students or an amazing memory, that would be hard to pick up on, I'd imagine. But, AI does format its answers in a particular fashion, and if you use it enough, you might pick up on its voice. Handing out take-home assignments for high school teachers must be particularly awful. I would bet that more students are using it to cheat than at the university level. Could be wrong, though.

Have you used any AI bots, Fox? I've used ChatGPT occasionally but not the others. I did use Grok recently to ask if it was still racist. If you don't understand why I asked that, check some recent US news having to do with Elon Musk and Grok. The answers seemed to be too "woke," so Elon Musk made some changes to fix that, and the bot started acting racist with positive comments about Hitler. You'd have to read them yourself. I don't want to offend anyone.

#72

Meetings / Re: PLUG Mug Monday 2 pm July ...

Last post by Jason - July 14, 2025, 06:39:47 PM

Sorry, Bill, I just checked the Forum. Same day, but too late. Dammit.

#73

Meetings / Re: PLUG Mug Monday 2 pm July ...

Last post by buster - July 14, 2025, 10:16:28 AM

Sorry Bill, but if you're ever going to be out this way on your cycle, send an email or phone and if we're around I have free coffee, tea,or soft drinks. In the afternoon we can sit on the front deck. (The destroyed tree makes the mornings unbearable.)

#74

Meetings / Re: PLUG Mug Monday 2 pm July ...

Last post by ssfc72 - July 13, 2025, 03:57:35 PM

:-) ok

So, seeing that there is not enough  interest in a PLUG Mug for tomorrow, I will cancel that idea and try again next month.

#75

Meetings / Re: PLUG Mug Monday 2 pm July ...

Last post by buster - July 13, 2025, 03:26:17 PM

Well it actually takes longer than that. They always take a couple of extra vials from my arm, and in the back room some of the staff have a tasting. I always stay to hear their comments.Usually I hear something like "Good body and aftertaste, but maybe a bit acidic. Perfect sweetness. Lovely aroma."

They seem to grow younger as I watch them.

#76

Meetings / Re: PLUG Mug Monday 2 pm July ...

Last post by ssfc72 - July 12, 2025, 06:08:12 PM

Hi Buster. Well that should only take 20 minutes to relive you of your blood.
You should still have time for a PLUG Mug. :-)

#77

Meetings / Re: PLUG Mug Monday 2 pm July ...

Last post by buster - July 12, 2025, 02:55:53 PM

Well that's unfortunate. I have an appointment that afternoon to have blood stolen from my arm to be analyzed. Nothing unusual.

#78

Meetings / PLUG Mug Monday 2 pm July 14?

Last post by ssfc72 - July 12, 2025, 08:47:46 AM

Anyone want to meetup at the Tim Hortons on Monaghan rd or the Lansdowne Mall food court?

#79

General Discussion / Re: No internet service for ov...

Last post by fox - July 06, 2025, 11:33:35 AM

Wow,that is an awful story, Bill! I'm with Cogeco and my internet was down for a week after the ice storm. But it wasn't Cogeco's fault. The pole in front of my house where the Cogeco line comes from was badly weakened by the storm. Cogeco had to wait until Hydro reinforced the pole before they could do their work. Good thing I had a mobile phone with 20gb of data during that period.

#80

Politics, Society and News. / Re: Simple Known Dangers with ...

Last post by fox - July 06, 2025, 11:27:10 AM

I would have said in the past, that an essay is a good way to evaluate a person's ability to use information creatively to tell a story or test a hypothesis. But in one of the courses I taught called Fisheries Assessment and Management, I learned before the days of AI that it was too easy to plagiarize an essay on a relevant topic - from past ones written, from other students, or buy purchasing one online. After awhile I felt that I no longer had the ability to catch these violations, and which ones I caught was just a matter of luck. (Most of the cheating I caught in this course was from students lifting paragraphs from published papers, not the other kinds of plagiarism mentioned above.) So I came up with a creative way to issue the assignment that would be much, much harder to plagiarize or buy. I called it "advances in ....". You would take a fisheries topic, identify five relatively recent advances in the science around that topic, indicate why they were; advances, and review the five published papers where the advances came from. The paper also had to summarize the state of the art on that topic. It worked very well and probably cut the rate of plagiarism to zero or near zero. But I'm not sure that AI couldn't handle this; I never had to find out.