AI essays - holy moly

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid entered a draft essay into an AI bot.
It’s now amazing.
And then we entered the result into an AI “test”…..and it passed and said 100% human generated.
The AI version really was better than the human version…it was a “why” essay with a lot of personalization.


I’m just shocked.

Yes many people do not understand AI or how it works. It will replace many white collar jobs- lawyers, analyst, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For editing, colleges are fine with it. OP looks like you’re ok.


Georgia Tech: "In the same way you would not copy directly from any other source you may incorporate into the writing process, you should not copy and paste directly out of any AI platform or submit work that you did not originally create. Instead, approach and consider any interaction with an AI tool as a learning experience that may help you generate ideas, provide alternative phrasing options, and organize your thoughts. Ultimately, we want to read and hear your unique and valuable writing style."

Curious what other schools say.
But yeah this seems to be ok according to GT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid entered a draft essay into an AI bot.
It’s now amazing.
And then we entered the result into an AI “test”…..and it passed and said 100% human generated.
The AI version really was better than the human version…it was a “why” essay with a lot of personalization.


I’m just shocked.

Yes many people do not understand AI or how it works. It will replace many white collar jobs- lawyers, analyst, etc.

Definitely no need to spend $3000, $5000 or more on any type of college essay advice! Have your kid write tons of drafts and put them into GPT4.
Then have them edit the refined result that comes out so it sounds even more like them. Keep doing that for a couple rounds.

Save yourself time and $$!

[Anonymous]

I believe you, OP. I used to be a journalist, but now work in comms. I believe my boss uses AI to edit speeches and produce memos. It’s embarrassing, but they’re not all terrible. They’re a bit oddly formal for our org’s purposes.

[Anonymous]

I don’t agree it is like working with an essay editor. For grammar issues, that is fine. But an editor would *suggest* not *do* for the writer. like, “use more descriptive terms,” not replace/insert new terms/descriptions. The AI makes the changes/does the work so the work is not only the original writer’s any longer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exactly…..
What he had written had personal anecdotes and stories in it but it wasn’t coherent enough and the AI draft had more poignancy, descriptive words, and honestly just tighter writing.

The orig draft was just ok. It sounded unpolished. It’s like an editor took a pen to it.

This took a story, made it poignant and emotional and just tightened it all up. Kid will refit now and add more description and then ask us to edit again.

Let’s see. It actually was really good to get over a writing block/hump.

um no, it’s cheating.

I don’t think so. It’s like working with an essay editor.

it’s cheating.

So is hiring a college essay editor

Where has any college said using an editor is cheating? They seem to expect it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exactly…..
What he had written had personal anecdotes and stories in it but it wasn’t coherent enough and the AI draft had more poignancy, descriptive words, and honestly just tighter writing.

The orig draft was just ok. It sounded unpolished. It’s like an editor took a pen to it.

This took a story, made it poignant and emotional and just tightened it all up. Kid will refit now and add more description and then ask us to edit again.

Let’s see. It actually was really good to get over a writing block/hump.

um no, it’s cheating.

I don’t think so. It’s like working with an essay editor.

it’s cheating.

So is hiring a college essay editor

Where has any college said using an editor is cheating? They seem to expect it

It’s a slippery slope though right?

At the end of the day, everyone will be using this within one or two cycles so it will be irrelevant.
Sounds like colleges are ok with it as an editor anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid entered a draft essay into an AI bot.
It’s now amazing.
And then we entered the result into an AI “test”…..and it passed and said 100% human generated.
The AI version really was better than the human version…it was a “why” essay with a lot of personalization.


I’m just shocked.

Yes many people do not understand AI or how it works. It will replace many white collar jobs- lawyers, analyst, etc.

Definitely no need to spend $3000, $5000 or more on any type of college essay advice! Have your kid write tons of drafts and put them into GPT4.
Then have them edit the refined result that comes out so it sounds even more like them. Keep doing that for a couple rounds.

Save yourself time and $$!

Will the increased number of editing rounds prevent detection of any AI influence?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid entered a draft essay into an AI bot.
It’s now amazing.
And then we entered the result into an AI “test”…..and it passed and said 100% human generated.
The AI version really was better than the human version…it was a “why” essay with a lot of personalization.


I’m just shocked.

AI said it was human generated because it was in fact human generated? Is that what you're saying?

[Anonymous]

I read an article that basically stated that, while the AI generated writing can be good, it's very impersonal.

Also, in the same article, it stated that some of the stuff coming out of there was nonsense.

Someone (more than one?) have posted AI generated stuff on this forum, and it's pretty clear it was AI generated. It was too generic.

[Anonymous]

I don't know much about AI and my impressions and thoughts may be be wrong. However, I do casually follow developments from a birds-eye view. With, this a few points:

A key problem with AI detectors are lots of false positives, i.e., your DC essay etc. may be identified as AI generated even if it wasn't.

I suspect and worry that people, laymen and professors, will also have many false positives when deciding if a piece of writing was AI generated (fully or partly). I haven't seen this point made a lot, but it is an obvious issue to me, and look no further than the first few comments in this thread for evidence.

- "Wow, your kid must be a crap writer if an AI generated essay was 'amazing'"; "Certain you don't know good writing...also suspect there is no "kid."" But, luckily, DCUM posters do know good writing and can beat an AI bot - they will let you know when they see it!

- Professors will beat an AI bot over the course of a semester - the professor agrees and will find cheaters to show it.

The capability of generative AI relevant to essay writing is improving extremely rapidly and has become very, very good. It may be that AI bots don't know what a good essay that "stands out" to an admission office looks like and has limited ability to directly "train" on that. But, then virtually no applicant will know it either. Also, it is not fully understood how AI bots do learn as they use an incomprehensible amount of data and "learn" things that they were not asked to learned. So, they may be and very soon become much better than we feel comfortable with.

- "you don’t know good writing if you think these things write in a way that will make someone stand out in admissions." But HS parents do know what these things don't know - it's a heroic assumption.

Dismissing AI is a mistake IMO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Congrats! He just gave the website his work and it will be used/replicated.

But agree with PP that you don’t know good writing if you think these things write in a way that will make someone stand out in admissions.

+1

OP using a word like “amazing” says a lot.

[Anonymous]

I took a lot of creative writing type classes in college. We had to read our classmates' short stories every week. It was SO obvious we our favorite writers were. One guy sounded like Ray Bradbury. Another guy like Albert Camus. It got to be a joke.

AI fiction is a little bit like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I asked AI to draft a couple essays using different parameters or scenarios. The results were pure crap.

At least nothing sounding at all like any 17 yr old I ever met would write. Maybe we’re just not elite enough.

No, but it’s likely you don’t know how to train the AI.

It’s not overly complicated but it does require a bit of effort.

I need some AI training.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know much about AI and my impressions and thoughts may be be wrong. However, I do casually follow developments from a birds-eye view. With, this a few points:

A key problem with AI detectors are lots of false positives, i.e., your DC essay etc. may be identified as AI generated even if it wasn't.

I suspect and worry that people, laymen and professors, will also have many false positives when deciding if a piece of writing was AI generated (fully or partly). I haven't seen this point made a lot, but it is an obvious issue to me, and look no further than the first few comments in this thread for evidence.

- "Wow, your kid must be a crap writer if an AI generated essay was 'amazing'"; "Certain you don't know good writing...also suspect there is no "kid."" But, luckily, DCUM posters do know good writing and can beat an AI bot - they will let you know when they see it!

- Professors will beat an AI bot over the course of a semester - the professor agrees and will find cheaters to show it.

The capability of generative AI relevant to essay writing is improving extremely rapidly and has become very, very good. It may be that AI bots don't know what a good essay that "stands out" to an admission office looks like and has limited ability to directly "train" on that. But, then virtually no applicant will know it either. Also, it is not fully understood how AI bots do learn as they use an incomprehensible amount of data and "learn" things that they were not asked to learned. So, they may be and very soon become much better than we feel comfortable with.

- "you don’t know good writing if you think these things write in a way that will make someone stand out in admissions." But HS parents do know what these things don't know - it's a heroic assumption.

Dismissing AI is a mistake IMO.

Many top schools give examples of essays written by students that were accepted. JHU is one that immediately comes to mind. They are essentially providing you with the blueprint for the AI. Also, there are expensive college admissions consultants with websites that will provide an example of essays that kids used for Harvard, Stanford, etc. They could be lying, but I don't think so. Again, you can feed those into the AI to train it.