‘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
I’ve been using it for a personal project, and it’s been wonderful.
It hasn’t written a word for me. But it’s been really damn helpful as a research assistant. I can have it provide lists of unexplained events by location, or provide historical details about specific things in about 5 seconds.
And for quicky providing editing advice, where to punch up the language, what I can cut, or communicate more clearly. And I can do that without begging a person for days to read.
Is it always perfect? Not at all, but it definitely helps overall, when you make it clear to be honest, and not sugar-coat things. It’s definitely mostly mediocre for creative advice, but good for technical advice.
It’s a tool, and it can be used correctly, or it can be used to cheat.
Do you then check those historical details against trusted sources? If so, how often do they need correction?
It has no idea what honesty is. It has no idea what bias is.
It is fancy auto-complete. And it’s wrong so often (like 40% of the time) that it should not be used to seek out factual information that the prompter doesn’t already know.
Eh… Depends on the importance and purpose of the information.
If you’re just trying to generate ideas for fiction from historical precedents, it doesn’t matter if it’s accurate. Or if you’re using it as a starting point, then following the links to check the original source (like I do all the time for Linux terminal commands).
Hell, I often use Linux terminal commands from Google’s search results AI box—I know enough to be able to parse what AI is suggesting (and identify when the proposed commands don’t make sense), and enough to undo what I’m doing if it doesn’t work. Saves a lot of time.
Copilot fixed some SQL syntax issues I had yesterday, too. 100% accuracy on that, despite it being a massive query with about a dozen nested subqueries. (Granted, I gave a very detailed prompt…) But, again, this was low stakes–who cares if a SELECT query fails to execute.
And the issue is that for the people who call for a Butlerian Jihad, we are part of the problem.