whitneyFeb 23, 2023

I've been experimenting with GPTZero, which claims to be able to identify whether text was produced by an LLM or a human.

Everything I know about how LLMs work and how humans produce language (I know a non-trivial amount about both, given my background in computational linguistics and psycholinguistics) tells me that you will never, ever be able to build something that can reliably distinguish between the two. And sure enough, GPTZero fails miserably. So many false positives.

Show threadwhitneyFeb 25, 2023
My brain wouldn't let go of this, so I now have a nearly 5k-word essayish thing expanding on this thread, and I don't know what to do with it - do I post it to Medium? Do I rework it to submit to a journal, and if so, which one? Make it an OER somehow? I dunno, but if anyone wants to read almost 5k words about why AI-detection is a fool's errand likely to disproportionately harm marginalized students, here you go: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CXgsYD-Sk-FqrbiaK2XeRwgRK56RG7-1rX2DDMV0JAA/edit?usp=sharing
Against the use of GPTZero and other LLM-output detection tools

Against the use of GPTZero and other LLM-output detection tools These last few months have been a VERY interesting time to be me: a person whose background is in computational linguistics, cognitive science, and psycholinguistics who ended up becoming a writing professor. The advent of ChatGPT ...

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Show threadDerek BruffMar 1, 2023
@writerethink Something like Medium is probably your best bet. Journals are too slow to publish and this is too long and detailed for an op ed. Blogging gets this out fast and in a stable, citable location.
Show threadwhitney
@derekbruff I did end up putting it up on Medium: https://medium.com/@writerethink/against-the-use-of-gptzero-and-other-llm-detection-tools-on-student-writing-b876b9d1b587
Against the use of GPTZero and other LLM-detection tools on student writing

These last few months have been a VERY interesting time to be me: a person whose background is in computational linguistics, cognitive science, and psycholinguistics who ended up becoming a writing…

Medium
Mar 1, 2023 at 3:29pmWeb