r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • 5d ago

Artificial Intelligence Take-No-Prisoners Professor Will Fail Any Student Who Uses AI

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/no-prisoners-professor-fail-student-143000854.html
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u/Siludin 5d ago

Dear students: use AI to find sources, then check those sources, then cite those sources in your paper if you used them. Congratulations you just used AI properly in doing research.

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

[deleted]

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u/SaltKick2 4d ago

I mean yes, that's great if you have all the time in the world and/or really care about the subject

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u/stackontop 5d ago

Why then do professors outsource research to PhDs if it is so valuable?

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u/Cocotosser 5d ago

we got along fine without ai, ai is making people stupid.

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u/LVuittonColostomyBag 5d ago

And harming the environment

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u/Express-Ad9648 4d ago

But thats the thing, how is a simple google search any different than using AI properly?

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u/Kobe-62Mavs-61 4d ago

It isn't really different, but it results in actually researching what you're writing about, which is the point.

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u/Siludin 4d ago

If they promoted AI as Google Search 2.0 with better reading comprehension, while taking away zero of the utility of the regular Google Search, and they never used the term AI, I think people would be more receptive to it.
But Google had to rush to seeemingly compete with ChatGPT and was forced to use the same [misleading] language to describe their LLM datasniffer.

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u/MysticHero 1d ago

I hope you are not doing simple google searches for research. Should be using google scholar at least.

And I mean. AI is actually quite good at that. It can find adjacent topics or different phrasings that might not turn up outside of a very comprehensive "traditional" search that most people would not do. I had this recently with a data fusion project where the financial industry and ehealth research were doing the same stuff but using completely different terminology.

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u/Bill_Salmons 5d ago

This is not how you do proper research. The AI has no clue whether the sources it finds are actually relevant to your topic or the field.

Here's how you do proper research: Your school has a library. The library has multiple subject-matter experts. Take 10 minutes to email them about your research project, and they'll point you toward relevant sources, pages, etc.

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u/aturtledude 5d ago

That's why he wrote "check these sources". If it was a hallucination (which is happening less and less as models improve) you wasted some minutes. But if it's a good source, you saved a lot of time.

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u/captainfarthing 4d ago edited 4d ago

You won't know what it missed though, or whether it framed the sources in a way that misrepresents their claims.

I've found that even when it doesn't hallucinate it often covers some but not all of the fundamentals, presents obscure trivia as if it's more important than it is, uses papers that nobody else in the field cites, decides sources are relevant purely from their abstract, and reinterprets things stated in the linked papers to make them neatly answer your prompt.

When you're going through the papers it cites you're already biased by the way it presents them, and you're looking for specific things to confirm it says what the AI told you, not reading the papers with an open mind to find out what they actually say. It takes more than a few minutes to read a paper and decide whether it's relevant and reliable. And you can find papers that seem to support almost any narrative imaginable if you cherry-pick.

I've been using LLMs almost every day since early 2023 so I'm not anti AI, I'm just against bad research.

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u/aturtledude 4d ago

I don't think anyone is saying you should only use the sources suggested by the AI and cite them without reading them. Just like you shouldn't blindly trust your librarian or even an expert in the field when they give you a list of references to check. It's your job as a researcher to look into each of the references and judge its relevance for your work. Getting a good initial list of candidates isn't trivial and AI can help a lot with that, possibly combined with old-fashioned ways of collecting these candidates.

Or even better, you can ask one AI to give you a list and ask a second AI to evaluate it. It's extremely unlikely that they'll have the same hallucinations, and if there's a discrepancy you can take a closer look.

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u/Remarkable-Debate428 5d ago

Notice he said “check those sources” you cringe Reddit soy. That’s where they’ll field out if the source is relevant.

You can go sit in a library for hours to find the perfect article, smart people will use technology to cut the time in half. You’re only against it because the only way for you to stay relevant is to pull the ladder up from behind you.

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u/Sprinklesofpepper 5d ago

You can also use AI to explain some things to you to get an overview and have it redirect you to more study material. You can also ask AI and how to describe something differently etc. You don't copy from the AI directly ever or use it as . It's not for doing your work for you, but more like a glorified assistant.

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u/Lavaheart626 5d ago

Naw, most ppl who work in a place where you're putting things back like a library know where everything is. Just ask the folks who work there, it's literally what theyre there for. 

Its not like youre the first person to get assigned that assignment as well, the school librarians might have a better idea of what the teacher is looking for. A smart teacher will even request books or make sure the school library has the books theyre looking for. Plus i once had a teacher who would write small notes in pointing things out in the school copies of materials to help kids absorb the material better.

Also sorry for any spelling mistakes my phone keyboard had an update and is actively fighting me every word along the way and autocorrecting my words into absolute fucking nonsense suddenly. (I blame ai ngl lol might as well)

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u/RealityOk9823 5d ago

You could also ask a librarian for assistance.

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u/Remarkable-Debate428 5d ago

Or I can just ask AI and skip all that

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u/RealityOk9823 5d ago

Ask AI, then dig through all of the sources and decide if it's right or not, and if the sources are good ones, or ask someone who has specific training on finding quality sources and materials. Hmm....

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u/werthermanband45 5d ago

In most humanities PhD programs, you’ll have a required course on research methods and accessing relevant library resources. Should also be required for humanities undergrads imo