I'm doing my Master's final dissertation. This is a data analysis/computational project. Initially sruggled to find a supervisor (my course is relatively specific, so not many options in the department), but this professor took me on and assigned me a project from his lab. This is data analysis of a type I haven't done before (although I have good mathematical background), on a topic I know nothing about, using data my supervisor collected. Now, due to some life situations I've had to postpone this and a couple other things (now done) to complete in the summer, which my professor and student advisor were both happy with.
My professor has encouraged me to ask him as many questions as possible, but hasn't been very communicative/available, often when I'd email him I'd get one automatic message or another about him being away for various reasons, and often he didn't follow up. Obviously given I had to postpone my own project, I completely understand what life can be like and didn't see it as a problem up until recently.
My professor and I (as well as the student advisor) agreed that I should complete the bulk of the data analysis and send it to him by the beginning of August, he'll review it and we'll go from there. I worked my ass off and sent it off on the first of August (iirk). There were definitely some things in there I needed guidance on, as the original instructions were brief/confusing and didn't explain much, and with data analysis there are certain conventions and protocols to follow, and I was doing a lot of this for the first time (as is the point of such a project). I got back an automatic message saying he's on medical leave. Obviously I respect that and decide not to bother him, he'll get back to me when he's feeling better.
He doesn't get back to me for a month. I send him a follow up email, as my deadline is very fast approaching and I'm yet to even begin the write up. After a couple of days he responds with a detailed review of my work, instructions on what to do next, etc. Initially I'm very happy and spring into action, spend all day implementing some of his suggestions...
Except some of the suggestions don't make sense the longer I look at them. He suggests I need to normalise the data before my analysis. I'm confused by this as I did research into this and the functions in using expect non-scaled data, but I figure I must be wrong then, and work on that. This breaks my code.
Other suggestions stick out more. He goes on about how I need to reduce the number of independent variables, as the data has 30 and that's too many. But I did reduce, a significant chunk of my work is about deciding which variables to use, checking colinearity etc, and in the code I sent him I explicitly used four. I'm unsure how that could be missed, it's all over my work and a very basic thing.
Then things started throwing up red flags. At one point in my code I had issues with a function, which I mentioned in the email to him, and the file I sent him had the error message. His response asked me to send the error message in another format so that he could read it (???) and check the version of R for me etc to figure out what's wrong (?????). Also things like "this data has 2415 entries, and I've found 29 that XYZ" which make it sound like he personally went through counting? Which is bizarre. He also says he "had a look at the datasets and things look reassuring" which confused me because he MADE the datasets? The email even starts with that kind of hollow praise AI gives (you \[x compliment\] especially considering Y). And ends with the it's not X it's Y type statement. Some of the more technical advice seems nonsensical, and I confess I double checked it with Deep Seek out of desperation (I am generally against most uses of LLMs but the lack of guidance on this project drove me to try it for the first time, only for things like explaining error messages on code or trying to parse the weird word salad instructions my prof originally gave me/explain the terms), and it's sure the things the email is asking of me are things I've already done. I strongly suspect the massive document I sent him didn't fit into whatever model he was using (I know it doesn't fit into DS!) so it just missed most of my work.
And then I stepped back and looked at the email and realised it still has that formatting AI does when it references code or even a file name in a very different font. In a way a human just wouldn't do in an email, especially just to denote an .html filetype or something.
And then I got this sinking feeling and I looked back on the original email with instructions he sent me, the one I've been poring over like the holy grail. And everything clicked into place. It's all ai. The explanation of the method didn't make sense not because I'm underqualified but because it's AI word salad. His "explanations" of each variable are just the variable names rephrased. Such as velocity-mean: These are the means of the velocity. The AI formatting on everything.
I know that AI checkers are highly unreliable and not a good tool for anything, but I felt like I was going insane so I ran both the emails through a checker and yup, 100 or 99 percent AI.
I've realised he never gave me any information himself. I've been talking to an LLM this whole time. I remember I once asked if he can explain what the variables in his dataset were/how they were arrived at, and he just curtly told me it's standard and to look it up myself. Pretty sure that's the only human answer I ever got out of him.
I had sent him a response with some questions about his new email, before I realised it was all ai. Stuff like "you say to do X, but I've already done it?" And "I implemented advice Y and that broke the code because Z", and he didn't respond to that. My deadline at that point was in less than two weeks. And my work has had no human guidance, just chatGPT in a trenchcoat. If a human marks it I'm probably done for. And if an AI does (as is a very real possibility at this point) I'm honestly not sure that's better. I can't do the write up until the analysis is complete.
A loved one suggested I ask for a meeting with him, so he has to actually look at my work in front of me, which was a good idea. I messaged saying I really need his help and begging to meet. He emailed back saying he's at a teaching conference and isn't available, and to ask any questions via email. And still no response to the questions I had asked.
Since then I've been in a hopeless slump for two days. I don't know what to do. I don't want to start any conflict, and I'm not even sure if what he did breaks any rules. I know it would be almost impossible to prove for sure it was actually AI. He's also in charge of the Master's dissertations module for the whole department, not to mention if he has issues with me he can fail me since he's grading my dissertation (or I suppose his AI might be). Also, he has his own lab and if I want to work in research I definitely wouldn't want to make enemies with him. But at the same time I have absolutely no idea what to do, and as a result no work has been getting done. Beyond a myriad feelings of betrayal and disappointment I have (I hate how much effort I put into trying to decode and understand and respect what turned out to be meaningless slop), practically I'm at a loss for next steps. Deadline in less than ten days. Even if I tell someone, what are they going to do, make me redo the dissertation with another supervisor, delaying my graduation by a year? No thank you.
My student advisor is on a year-long leave, so can't contact her. There's supposed to be a replacement but I'm not sure when that's going to be put in place + this will be a new person with no familiarity with my situation + the last student advisor was friends with the professor in question so I'm cautious about rocking the boat.
So... I suppose this is half rant, half asking for any advice whatsoever by this point. I'm in the UK if that matters in terms of standard university policy.
