Current Events > Professor flunks class after ChatGPT falsely claims to have written their papers

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https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/texas-am-chatgpt-ai-professor-flunks-students-false-claims-1234736601/

A NUMBER OF seniors at Texas A&M UniversityCommerce who already walked the stage at graduation this year have been temporarily denied their diplomas after a professor ineptly used AI software to assess their final assignments, the partner of a student in his class known as DearKick on Reddit claims to Rolling Stone.

Dr. Jared Mumm, a campus rodeo instructor who also teaches agricultural classes, sent an email on Monday to a group of students informing them that he had submitted grades for their last three essay assignments of the semester. Everyone would be receiving an X in the course, Mumm explained, because he had used Chat GTP (the OpenAI chatbot is actually called ChatGPT) to test whether theyd used the software to write the papers and the bot claimed to have authored every single one.

I copy and paste your responses in [ChatGPT] and [it] will tell me if the program generated the content, he wrote, saying he had tested each paper twice. He offered the class a makeup assignment to avoid the failing grade which could otherwise, in theory, threaten their graduation status.

Theres just one problem: ChatGPT doesnt work that way. The bot isnt made to detect material composed by AI or even material produced by itself and is known to sometimes emit damaging misinformation. With very little prodding, ChatGPT will even claim to have written passages from famous novels such as Crime and Punishment. Educators can choose among a wide variety of effective AI and plagiarism detection tools to assess whether students have completed assignments themselves, including Winston AI and Content at Scale; ChatGPT is not among them. And OpenAIs own tool for determining whether a text was written by a bot has been judged not very accurate by a digital marketing agency that recommends tech resources to businesses.

But all that would apparently be news to Mumm, who appeared so out of his depth as to incorrectly name the software he was misusing. Students claim they supplied him with proof they hadnt used ChatGPT exonerating timestamps on the Google Documents they used to complete the homework but that he initially ignored this, commenting in the schools grading software system, I dont grade AI bullshit. (Mumm did not return Rolling Stones request for comment.)

Mumms email was shared on Reddit by a user with the handle DearKick, who identified himself as the fianc of one of the students to receive a failing grade for submitting supposedly AI-generated essays. He claims to Rolling Stone that his partner had never heard of ChatGPT herself and was baffled by the accusation, noting that she feels even worse considering its something she knows nothing about. She immediately reached out to the dean and CCd the president of the university, DearKick alleges, but did not immediately receive assistance and went to plead her case with administrators in person on Tuesday. DearKick adds that Mumm allegedly flunked several whole classes in similar fashion rather than question the validity of his methods for detecting cheaters.

In an amusing wrinkle, Mumms claims appear to be undercut by a simple experiment using ChatGPT. On Tuesday, redditor Delicious_Village112 found an abstract of Mumms doctoral dissertation on pig farming and submitted a section of that paper to the bot, asking if it might have written the paragraph. Yes, the passage you shared could indeed have been generated by a language model like ChatGPT, given the right prompt, the program answered. The text contains several characteristics that are consistent with AI-generated content. At the request of other redditors, Delicious_Village112 also submitted Mumms email to students about their presumed AI deception, asking the same question. Yes, I wrote the content youve shared, ChatGPT replied. Yet the bot also clarified: If someone used my abilities to help draft an email, I wouldnt have a record of it.

DearKick tells Rolling Stone that their fiances meeting on Tuesday with the universitys Dean of Agricultural Science should clear things up, I hope, and speculates that Mumm had little familiarity with chatbots before attempting to run student papers through one. In an update to his original post, he revealed that while at least one student has already been exonerated through Google Docs timestamps and received an apology from Mumm, another two had admitted to using ChatGPT earlier in the semester, which no doubt greatly complicates the situation for those who did not.

This technology is going to bring so much chaos to the world, this is only the beginning

Imagine literally flunking out of college because you failed rodeo studies.

yeah society is fucked

This is actually really interesting.

People thought ai would take over the world through finding it's own identity and it's vast knowledge and understanding.

In reality it just comes down to people being stupid and overwhelmingly reliant on chatgp for things they shouldn't be.

It's always interesting to see Sci-fi vs. Actual future

Man... people using bots to write their papers. Outright Plagiarism is no longer the bottom level of effort.

But yeah, the professor sounds like he learned two people had AI write their papers, than he went absolutely insane assuming everyone was cheating and treating him like a fool.

videospirit posted...

Man... people using bots to write their papers. Outright Plagiarism is no longer the bottom level of effort.

But yeah, the professor sounds like he learned two people had AI write their papers, than he went absolutely insane assuming everyone was cheating and treating him like a fool.

I know there's a professor at a college here that has threatened that if he finds one AI written paper he'll fail everyone without question. Dunno if anything has come of it, mind. I'd wager more than a few old-school profs are going to lose their absolute shit about AI.

College students see college as little more than paying for permission to have a decent career, which pisses off academics to no end.

Also, academia is the one sector most existentially threatened by AI.

WilliamPorygon posted...

Dr. Jared Mumm, a campus rodeo instructor who also teaches agricultural classes, sent an email on Monday to a group of students informing them that he had submitted grades for their last three essay assignments of the semester. Everyone would be receiving an X in the course, Mumm explained, because he had used Chat GTP (the OpenAI chatbot is actually called ChatGPT) to test whether theyd used the software to write the papers and the bot claimed to have authored every single one.

Lmfao fire this dumb fuck

itachi15243 posted...

People thought ai would take over the world through finding it's own identity and it's vast knowledge and understanding.

In reality it just comes down to people being stupid and overwhelmingly reliant on chatgp for things they shouldn't be.

AI is going to be completely different not even 2 years from now. To be dismissive of AI now demonstrates a supreme lack of foresight.

R_Jackal posted...

I know there's a professor at a college here that has threatened that if he finds one AI written paper he'll fail everyone without question.

He should be fired if he does that

Sad_Face posted...

AI is going to be completely different not even 2 years from now. To be dismissive of AI now demonstrates a supreme lack of foresight.

I was being sarcastic, calm down

Questionmarktarius posted...

College students see college as little more than paying for permission to have a decent career, which pisses off academics to no end.

Because ultimately, thats what it is. The people who go to college purely for the education are in the minority.

Questionmarktarius posted...

College students see college as little more than paying for permission to have a decent career, which pisses off academics to no end.

Because that's exactly what most majors are... You're paying thousands to not have your resume automatically rejected by someone, or in some cases an AI filter. For most college is a means to an end and not the end itself.

Sounds like the professor needs to be fired for having ChatGPT do his work grading essays. In violation of the schools honor code.

Hopefully they iron this out before the next assignment on Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth is due.

A_Good_Boy posted...

Imagine literally flunking out of college because you failed rodeo studies.

You jest but thats a big problem at Texas A&M.

He should be out of a job for this

This suggests the professor was also using the AI to grade the papers, which his department may be looking into. Unless they've already implemented some policy on that.

WilliamPorygon posted...

campus rodeo instructor

:v

Dr. Jared Mumm, a campus rodeo instructor

Is this a joke?

ai123 posted...

Is this a joke?

No thats Texas A&M. The school you go to when the resf of Texas is to citified for ya.

ai123 posted...

Is this a joke?

They're a huge agriculture school, that's why they are called "Aggies"