Yet another Hacker News

27 points ArchAndStarch 2 hours ago 11 comments

warkdarrior 42 minutes ago | parent

Wow, universities still teach deprecated programming languages.

warkdarrior 36 minutes ago | parent

And in case anyone is not sure what I am talking about, see this: https://media.defense.gov/2022/Nov/10/2003112742/-1/-1/0/CSI...

aesthesia 28 minutes ago | parent

Note that the word "deprecate" appears nowhere in that document.

warkdarrior 24 minutes ago | parent

The wording at the end is quite clear, even if it does not use the exact word "deprecate":

> "NSA advises organizations to consider making a strategic shift from programming languages that provide little or no inherent memory protection, such as C/C++ and assembly, to a memory safe language when possible."

aesthesia 21 minutes ago | parent

Deprecation is a speech act. It's something that can only occur if you use the word itself.

fxwin 35 minutes ago | parent

Universities teach one of the most influential and ubiquitous programming languages, crazy

woopwoop 36 minutes ago | parent

> Second, while the percentage of students identified was substantial, it was still less than 50%.

No doubt the student body will learn this lesson, and in the future the number of students identified as having cheated will be near zero.

summarity 18 minutes ago | parent

If you remove the mention of AI from this post, the authors process and setup of the notice to students is absolutely mental. The intentions might be good, but damn if this isn’t a comically inept way to set up a kafkaesque nightmare rather than a place for actual learning. The defensive attitude doesn’t help either. Just the sheer energy that went into all the steps mentioned here, not invested in any even superficial attempt to perhaps adapt. That isn’t to “give into AI” or cheating, but if 50% of students break your rules, more rules and litigation about the rules are not the next step to take.

altruios 8 minutes ago | parent

Using LLMs for the classroom assignment is like using a forklift to lift weights in a gym: completely inappropriate and atrophic.

That some 50% are using the LLMs rather than spend effort learning is not a cause to remove the ban of LLMs in the classroom.

90% of the power of an LLM is being yourself competent enough to judge its outputs. Besides, do we really need more humans coding like LLMs?

djoldman 16 minutes ago | parent

> This form must be completed .... Failure to complete the form will result in an unfavorable letter being sent to the Dean of Students along with further potential disciplinary action.

> Through careful analysis and manual review, we have identified what we consider to be clear and concrete indicators in one or more of your homework assignment solutions that it was partially or entirely generated by an AI/LLM tool like ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, etc....

> You are required to submit a response to this form....Failure to respond will result in a grade of 'F' for the course.

> Honest responses that align with our analysis will result in a score of O for the identified assignment(s).

> You also have the option to meet and dispute our findings. Should you choose to do so and we determine that our original findings of AI/LLM usage stand, we will instead apply the standard course policy from the syllabus and assign a grade of F for the course.

The above letter sent to a bunch of students.

> It is an open question whether this is reflective of their actual behavior or instead something that underscores the purported, and unintentional, potentially coercive nature of the form.

Sounds like the professor discovered (or disputes the possibility of?) the concept of forced confessions.

"Honest responses that align with our analysis": did the professor consider the possibility of dishonest responses that align with the analysis?

"Should you choose to do so and we determine that our original findings of AI/LLM usage stand" Not much needs to be said about that.

If the professor was confident enough about the analysis to send the letter, then all of the students getting the letter should have gotten an F and no letter at all.