AI robots to mark exams

Oh Bluddy Hell!

As a recently turned 14 year old, in Year 10, its a scary thought doing GCSE's and BTECs early, heck my maths class might be doing Advanced Maths or AS Level Maths, in YEAR 11?!

I certainly want the authenticity of a human exam marker, atleast then he definately understands. Its like sending a mouse to do a man's job, the mouse might be trained but he might not have the experience. Not to mention economy jobs, we're unstable enough as it is, we need jobs not frigging robots.

I know this is only a Pearson jobby, at the moment... I'm the only one doing my BTEC at my school, its a pilot programme, and I think I have to do my ICT Practitioners test at a Pearson Test Centre, quite frankly I want to make sure my exam is marked thoroughly and properly, like any one would. AI is great, but to be honest it needs small time tests first.

rant over and the icon is for the f*ckwit that thought : "oh, I know, lets put this in several test centres for important tests!".

God *roll eyes*

GIGO

If the exam itself is not intelligently designed, it doesn't matter how good or objective the grader is, the results are still worthless. Designing a test that actually measures what has been learned is not a trivial task, and a lot of so-called teachers are not competent at it.

errrmm, what??

"The system is not “distracted” by language-irrelevant factors such as test takers’ appearance, personality or body language."

it would be quite hard to be distracted by any of those things while marking an exam paper, since the candidate is not, in fact, there.

Mind you, I don't think a robot could do a worse job than the incompetents doing this job at the moment. in the last couple of AS/A2 exams my duaghter had one paper remarked and it went from a D to an A, and one of her friends had a paper graded U (i.e. not worth marking) that went to an A on remark. If the humans are that useless give the machines a try!!!

Uh?

"The system is not “distracted” by language-irrelevant factors such as test takers’ appearance, personality or body language."

If the system can infer the author's appearance, personality or body language from an ESSAY, then truly we must all welcome our new and omniscient overlords. (On the other hand, the whole thing could be a pile of crap dreamt up by someone too stupid to even realise what a fucking twat they are.)

the system "'understands' the meaning of text much the same as a human,"

Given that many young humans these days can't even *write* coherent text, I'd be very impressed if this actually worked!

RoboMarking

I was speaking with a Greek acquaintance recently, and he mentioned that the Greek education system encouraged memorization (I personally believe memory is a Good Thing), and that while creative responses might be marked highly, the most reliably acceptable responses were those directly from the text.

Clearly, the Greeks will benefit the most from AI Robots. The more brilliant students, not so much. Perhaps AI robots might be applied most appropriately to the "fuzzy-studies" - i.e. the humanities. I wouldn't want my surgeon to be marked highly by robots!

My surgeon's failure is my own!

Чего стоишь? Работать надо!

Robot. Karel Chapek. Chech, Europe. "RUR", 1920. Slavic for "to work" - Rus. "работать" [ra-'bo-tat'] -- to execute a job. " t' " @ the1st syl. is a sound when you pronounce "t" the way you'd do it saying "teh", a "mild t".

The title is probably translated as something like "Why stuck? Get on working!" is the last phrase from http://video.tvguide.com/Window+To+Paris/Window+To+Paris/812913?autoplay=true&partnerid=OVG , the unprecedented Alien XCellence in every tick of the alarm watch. Originally presented @ http://livefilm.info/otc/360-okno-v-parizh.html , no anti-pirate rules for the visitors. Some 512k+ connection speed only, sorry London (-:

Definitely Paris, because she's the City where the Walls lead to.

73

Calling Dr Penrose

Seems that AI, as usual, continues to shift ground when it hits the real world.

An expert system, in its small world, can work, sometimes.

It is hard enough to get a biological intelligence to work sometimes, especially in the "follow procedures or else" rule bound bureacracies that the corporate state, both public and

private, has reduced us too.

To the overlords of the corporate state and the uncritical, AI sounds like a simple thing.

They will try to use it, whether AI works or not. The insidious effects of the reductionist fallacy that has poisoned the intellect of the West is reducing our leadership to foolishness.

As Dr Roger Penrose pointed out in "The Emperors New Mind" we still don't know what real thinking is, and what ever it is, it is not possible on a Turing machine, if I understand him correctly.

OMG !

How fantastic !

If this AI program is half as good as the one that picked my modules for the BSc in Information Systems a couple of years ago, Jake might as well change to major in Cookery.

These AI things can only ever be as good as the twat that counts the beans will allow them to be.

What sort of jobs are these "vetted" individuals gonna get ?

I really believe it will be the sort of job that no self respecting human would choose to do.

Err, given the choice, by our new evaluating overlords.

This is how it starts

First they weed out those that are smart enough to be a threat, then they put idiots in charge... Hang on, that happened before the robots took over (damn!)

Stones from Glasshouses always deserve Comment

What an XXXXCellent Plan, Andrew, ....to rattle a few Cages/Ivory Towers. Is the Register Game for taking AI Lead and making Permanent Changes? For why would they leave IT to Lesser Mortals who wouldn't evenTry for the Want of a Clue of what to Do ? :-)

I Kid U Not ........ http://www.phrack.com/issues.html?issue=66&id=17#cmt1912

Isaac Asimov might (or might not) be pleased ...

Have any of the designers ever read his short stories on robots?

The most common theme is the reaction of curmudgeons who don't accept the changes being wrought by tin substitutes.

This reply was crafted entirely from recycled electrons - so there!

The one with the Alpha Sprayer in the pocket, thanks.

Laughing about a joke

To me, as long as AI cannot laugh about a joke on its own account - meaning without having built-in algorithms to understand a nut-nut joke - there is no AI. At least, no AI that can even remotely be considered to mark exam tests.

We'll see more main-stream texts, because this method allows for reverse-engineering of the marking algorithm, which in turn will result in even more 'teaching to the test' - sorry:'teaching to the global algorithm'.

Therefore, El Reg is correct: marking will be 'programmed in' by the personal preferences of the developers. And not a single person can convince me, that the machine will be able to gather an abstract comprehension and understanding of its own from the text fed into it.

Paris, because I think even she is better at marking an English essay than that box.

Hmm

Is this some sort of Turing Test lite maybe - if you can't tell whether an exam paper has been marked by a human or a machine, then the future has arrived. What next? Job interviews by machine? Replacing judge and jury with a computer?

But are they really serious? Multiple choice marked by computer I can understand, but not essays surely? Or don't they do essays any more? Yes, that must be it. The machine just needs to check if there's a name at the top of the paper and that's a pass, right?

Sounds good to me

I have no faith in human exam markers. Heck I don't have any faith in the whole exam system.

Plenty of idiots go on to get As while plenty of bright people end up with nothing.

All these exams do is test your memory, i.e. how well you can remember this fact or that chunk of text.

Sounds like a perfect job for robots.

AI Qaeda?

Anyone to introduce a bot having a sense of humour?

73

I'm like totally cool with this

and can we have robot teachers too. Then I'll send my robot to school in my place

As an after thought

As Pearson are a US company, I assume that my 15 year old taking English language GCSE this year, had better refrain totally from the use of irony in her written answers and essays.

Quelling her natural inclination for creative writing might also score some points in the exam. Leaving me to wonder what will happen to poetry, prose and lyric writing (at which I once thought that we excelled)

Humour might also cause her a problem if there is but an iota of whit, in what she writ.

She has already had to deal with not being able to study Art, Music, Design Technology and Drama for her GCSE owing to modular timetable clashes which no human in the school, (3rd best in UK apparently) has the power to undo.

I rather suspect that the machines have already penetrated our civilisation and only willing healthy and dumb subjects will be incorporated into the new society, vetted by Pearson Education software no doubt.

I just hope this AI program doesn't use American English to mark the fookin exam papers.

ALF