Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

TagPlagiarism

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Old male author writing books

Does Plagiarism Really Matter Any More?

Yes, if we don’t want a world drowning in merely private truths
In a world of no truth but multiple perspectives, what does plagiarism even mean? Read More ›
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hand holding light bulb. idea concept with innovation and inspiration

Are Good Ideas Hard to Find?

This academic paper tells us a lot about why innovation has slowed
Many do not think of these small ideas, most of them highly technical, that enabled the improvements in chips, crop yields and new drugs. Read More ›
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Group of college students studying in the school library, a girl and a boy are using a laptop and connecting to internet

Teachers Gear Up for a New Year – and ChatGPT

Due to ChatGPT's popularity, many schools are seeking ways to integrate the technology into their learning environments.

GPT-3, released by OpenAI in November, swiftly undermined the integrity of many a student’s academic work. Professors across disciplines have had to contend with how to discern machine vs. human-generated work. Now, with a new school year underway, that challenge remains. Due to ChatGPT’s popularity, many schools are seeking ways to integrate the technology into their learning environments. But the question of how to do this remains murky. Bloomberg reports, But professors and administrators seeking to integrate generative AI into their curriculums are left with a big question: How? They need to find the right middle ground, said Steve Weber, vice provost of undergraduate curriculum and education at Drexel University. Educators can’t completely prohibit use of the tool and neglect to teach it, but Read More ›

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la hollywood

ChatGPT Isn’t Hollywood’s Only Issue

The deepfakes are only getting more scarily accurate

Deepfakes are a growing threat to acting careers. It’s the other challenge posed by generative AI technologies. In early May, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) began a strike in Hollywood opposing both low wages and the intrusion of generative AI like ChatGPT, which critics purport will be used to replace human writers. The strike illustrates the current threat to the Hollywood writing industry, but the looming deepfake apocalypse calls the role of the actual actors into question, too. Tom Hanks jokingly noted that long after he’s gone, AI-generated versions of him will star in films far into the future. Maybe his remarks weren’t so comical after all. While deepfakes, upon close inspection, can be identified, they appear to be Read More ›

education
education

More Than Cogs in an AI Machine

Perhaps it isn't only AI which poses a challenge, but the mainstream model of education

Education seems especially vulnerable to ChatGPT. Universities now have to grapple with AI plagiarism, and even teachers and administrators are being tempted to use the Large Language Model to generate syllabi and even condolence emails in the wake of tragedies. Leah Libresco Sargeant, author of Building the Benedict Option and Arriving at Amen, wrote a piece on this issue at First Things last week. She goes past simply the struggle schools have in detecting ChatGPT’s presence, but also why it’s so easy to use AI generated language in school settings. Many educational institutions, like AI, promote the appearance of productivity but lack real value. She writes, If schools are primarily dedicated to producing workers, rather than holistic human beings steeped Read More ›

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Generative AI illustration of cute little robot reading assignment on paper during exam at school

AI Can Pass the MBA Exam, Wharton Professor Says

In the wake of ChatGPT uproar, its abilities (and limits) are becoming better understood

OpenAI’s ChatGPT passed the Master of Business Administration (MBA) exam according to a news report from NBC. Professor Christian Terwiesch of Wharton, who conducted the research and authored a paper on the matter, said that the bot scored somewhere in the B range on the exam, and that this has major implications for education. The report is just another in a flux of news and concerns about AI invading the spheres of education and academia. Terwiesch wrote, [The bot’s score shows] remarkable ability to automate some of the skills of highly compensated knowledge workers in general and specifically the knowledge workers in the jobs held by MBA graduates including analysts, managers, and consultants.” Despise its apparent advancement, the bot did Read More ›

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Bussiness man Hand press button on panel of printer, printer scanner laser office copy machine supplies start concept.

Science Sleuths Catch Authors Using AI Tool for Plagiarism

Odd phrases like “counterfeit consciousness” instead of “artificial intelligence” began appearing in computer science journals, triggering an investigation

The expression “tortured phrases” likely reminds teachers of student essays. Paradoxically, it takes time to develop a “natural” style. But last April, when that sort of language started appearing in computer science journals, some alert researchers suspected that something more serious than mere awkwardness was at work: The researchers could not understand why researchers would use the terms ‘counterfeit consciousness’, ‘profound neural organization’ and ‘colossal information’ in place of the more widely recognized terms ‘artificial intelligence’, ‘deep neural network’ and ‘big data’. Holly Else, “‘Tortured phrases’ give away fabricated research papers” at Nature But they figured it out. Many computer science papers, especially from China, were partly constructed using automated translation and software that may disguise plagiarism. But the software Read More ›

Citation

Anti-Plagiarism Software Goof: Paper Rejected for Repeat Citations

The scholar was obliged by discipline rules to cite the flagged information repetitively

Not only was Jean-François Bonnefon’s paper rejected by conventional anti-plagiarism software but the rejection didn’t make any sense. Bonnefon, research director at Toulouse School of Economics, was informed of “a high level of textual overlap with previous literature” (plagiarism) when he was citing scientists’ affiliations, standard descriptions, and papers cited by other—information he was obliged to cite accurately, according to a standard format. “It would have taken two [minutes] for a human to realise the bot was acting up,” he wrote on Twitter. “But there is obviously no human in the loop here. We’re letting bots make autonomous decisions to reject scientific papers.” Reaction to the post by Dr Bonnefon, who is currently a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute Read More ›

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Bingecast: Hal Philipp on Patents, Litigation, and Entrepreneurship

If you’ve used a touchscreen, an automated door opener or automated faucet today, it is probably based on the technology of inventor and entrepreneur Hal Philipp. Robert J. Marks and Hal Philipp address patents, litigation, and entrepreneurship today on Mind Matters. Show Notes 0:00:52 | Introducing Hal Philipp 0:01:34 | Robot boxer 0:04:08 | Tektronix, Optical Technology 0:07:25 | Automatic Read More ›

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Gavel on patent law book

In Patent Disputes, the Bigger They Are, the Harder They Hit

Hal Philipp on Litigation and Why Owning a Patent is Only a License to Sue

If you used a touchscreen, an automated door opener or automated faucet today, it is probably based on the technology of inventor and entrepreneur Hal Philipp. We continue our conversation today with Hal on the Mind Matters podcast. Show Notes 01:30 | History of the Touchscreen 04:20 | Making Touchscreens Cheap and Reliable 06:00 | Defining a Patent 09:20 | Read More ›

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Two computer keyboards, user typing on one of them

AI Is Not a Simple Fix for Plagiarism

The internet speeded up a perennial problem without changing it

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, plagiarism amounts to passing ourselves off as experts without tears. It’s not realistic to expect software to detect all of the subtleties.

Read More ›