Brown Professor Suspects Majority of His Class Used AI To Cheat (insidehighered.com) 109
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Inside Higher Ed: For the first time since he started teaching Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory nearly two decades ago, Brown University economics professor Roberto Serrano gave his students a take-home midterm this spring. Quite a few students had expressed anxiety about being in a classroom after a gunman killed two students and injured nine in a December mass shooting at Brown, and so "it was appropriate," he said, to allow students to take their exams at home. But by the end of the semester, Serrano regretted the decision. Dozens of students in the class likely used artificial intelligence to cheat and earn perfect or near-perfect scores on their midterm, he said. Serrano in turn made the final exam in-person, which led more than a dozen students to drop the course and even more to fail it.
Administrators' response to the widespread cheating event has been "meek," he said, and the incident has raised questions about how universities can -- and should -- respond to AI-enabled cheating at scale. "I am not declaring [the midterm] void for now. I am going to give the class a chance to prove me wrong," he wrote. "That is, if the distribution of the final exam is roughly similar to the distribution of the midterm, I will count the midterm. Otherwise, which is of course what I expect to happen, I will declare the midterm void and reweigh the final accordingly." Serrano heard crickets from his students, but 18 of them subsequently dropped the class. Nine students remained enrolled but did not take the final exam. And Serrano said the results proved him right; three students earned a zero, and the average score on the final was 48.6 percent -- by far a historic low, he said. Previously, the average final exam score had never dropped below 65 percent. Only a few students scored similarly to how they did on the midterm.
Administrators' response to the widespread cheating event has been "meek," he said, and the incident has raised questions about how universities can -- and should -- respond to AI-enabled cheating at scale. "I am not declaring [the midterm] void for now. I am going to give the class a chance to prove me wrong," he wrote. "That is, if the distribution of the final exam is roughly similar to the distribution of the midterm, I will count the midterm. Otherwise, which is of course what I expect to happen, I will declare the midterm void and reweigh the final accordingly." Serrano heard crickets from his students, but 18 of them subsequently dropped the class. Nine students remained enrolled but did not take the final exam. And Serrano said the results proved him right; three students earned a zero, and the average score on the final was 48.6 percent -- by far a historic low, he said. Previously, the average final exam score had never dropped below 65 percent. Only a few students scored similarly to how they did on the midterm.
Cheating is too easy (Score:5, Interesting)
First of all, props to student 22 who clearly didn't cheat on the midterm and managed to do better on the final, but it looks like about 85 out of 89 students cheated.
With cheating being so easy, professors really need to be having in-person tests to see if the students are learning anything. I wonder if giving students the exact same test out of class and then in class would show who cheated more clearly
Re:Cheating is too easy (Score:5, Insightful)
I honestly don't see the problem here. They did homework, cheated. Then they got the real test and failed.
So the system worked!
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With cheating being so easy, professors really need to be having in-person tests to see if the students are learning anything. I wonder if giving students the exact same test out of class and then in class would show who cheated more clearly
This is the way. In addition to the written test, have a 3-minute oral test on the exact same material that the written test covered, one-on-one with each student. That oral test becomes a multiplier against the written test score. But this does take more time and effort on the part of the professor. For 100 students, that comes out to well over 5 hours.
The students should be told in advance so that they will be scared into studying.
The death of homework (Score:4, Insightful)
AI is too easy to use, when the work is done at home. And I say, good riddance. Homework has for decades been a substitute for learning. AP classes aren't actually "advanced" they just require more homework. If AI kills all those extra hours of busywork, that's a good thing. Exercises and essays and workbooks can be done in school.
Re:The death of homework (Score:5, Insightful)
Homework is for practice. It is for students to exercise the knowledge they have gained. To fix it in their minds as more than a passing thought. To enhance retention of the materiel. Listen to the lecture, read the book, practice the exercise... retain the knowledge.
There is no point to grading homework. Except as a feedback loop for the students. So that they know what they thought they understood -but did not.
In class time is for lectures, discussions, and Q&A. Don't waste the interactive time doing things that can be done solo.
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Homework is also for reading topics that can be discussed in the next class.
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I don't disagree with the value of practice. I disagree with the *quantity* of practice imposed on students. Much of that practice can be accomplished during class time. If school hours aren't long enough to allow this, why not make school hours longer! This would solve other problems as well, such as making it easier for parents to have jobs while their kids are in school.
The quantity of homework has gone up significantly since I grew up in the 1970s. We used to have a few scattered homework assignments. C
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If school hours aren't long enough to allow this, why not make school hours longer!
First, because there are only 24 hours in a day.
Second: I took AP classes constantly. Compared to normal classes, there was not "more homework." The homework was MORE RIGOROUS. For students who were not equipped for it, it might have taken more time than the "standard" class homework.
Third - The quantity of homework has gone up significantly since I grew up in the 1970s. - Every time I see some senilefuck say things li
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If your AP classes didn't involve more homework than regular classes, you were lucky.
I would propose a school day that's about as long as a work day, like 8-5 or something like that. My high school actually had a schedule like this. Each class was 90 minutes, allowing time for both lecture and practice work. Classes were scheduled more like college classes, some 2, 3, or 4 days a week. Class periods included sports and electives. It actually worked really well.
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Re:The death of homework (Score:4, Interesting)
There are two points for grading homework that work in favor for students (even though not all may understand this).
First, it motivates you. If it is optional, then you may skip over it or tell yourself you do it when you have more time. It needs to be graded with deadline to make your really work on it on a regular basis.
Second, it filters you, if you're unprepared. If you fail the graded homework, you (probably) fail the exam. By failing you without negative consequences (except for having the course again), the professor does you a favor.
Copying (with or without AI) helps you to avoid these factors and get into the exam to fail there. Previously copying (often) was easy to detect so people could be failed for the homework before the exam. Now they have "unique" solutions and tutors are required to play detective, which is not their job. They are also not hired as police officers that control you're not cheating, but as someone who should help you learning.
If everyone works against the system, the system has a problem. And the problem is not, that the students are cheating, but that cheating seems to be the best option for them, either because it really makes things easier (should teaching be adapted not to require homework then?) or because it seems to make them and then they fail the exam (should be adapted how to motivate them to learn?). Making rules and enforcement stricter only treats symptoms.
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If everyone works against the system, the system has a problem. And the problem is not, that the students are cheating, but that cheating seems to be the best option for them ...
Define best I suppose?
The problem is a lot of students lack motivation to do the really hard thing, and are easily distracted. I was one of those, I would have been completely fucked in the era of AI I suspect. I was also at a university where I could get just the right kick up the arse someone like me needed and I had friends who u
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> Define best I suppose?
I don't define best, because it only *seems* to be the best option. The question here is not if it is a good option, but why they consider it to be a good option. One could try to discuss if it indeed can be a good option (e.g. when criticizing how universities currently work) but that was not what I wanted to do here.
The problem now is, that people short-term try to pick the fight to play detective and catch cheaters, but the long-term question is how to shape learning. First the
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AI is too easy to use, when the work is done at home. And I say, good riddance. Homework has for decades been a substitute for learning. AP classes aren't actually "advanced" they just require more homework. If AI kills all those extra hours of busywork, that's a good thing.
The historically-bad results of the final at least suggest that doing out-of-class work themselves actually helps students.
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Homework has for decades been a substitute for learning.
Wow, you made it to be a grown arse adult and yet you still don't understand what homework is? Hint: Virtually no one is able to do homework without the class. One isn't a substitute for another. Homework is a practical application of what you learn in class to strengthen the concepts.
AP classes aren't actually "advanced" they just require more homework.
So you're saying advanced classes shouldn't require you to strengthen learned concepts or practice them? Maybe if you understood what homework is and it's purpose then you can come join me in this post and say with me with con
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What I'm saying about AP classes is that often, they aren't actually more advanced, they're just the same material, plus more homework. If there are exceptions to this, that's great, and I suspect there are. But I've seen this pattern in multiple school districts, AP students who are burned out because of the endless homework without any actual "advanced" material.
What extra working hours are you talking about? Teachers routinely take *their* work home too, grading papers until late at night. If students ar
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Oh my, that's a lot of stereotypes in a single post!
First, I have a BS in Computer Science. My ACT and GRE scores were at the 90th percentile. I've had a very successful career. I believe Trump is the worst president we've had in my lifetime, if not ever. Putin is an evil dictator who deserves prison.
Now, what stereotype can you come back with?
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I have never done that and I will not start. I guess you just have bad teachers.
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I actually think it's a great boon for teachers, who tend to be chronically overworked.
No, teachers shouldn't completely turn over grading to AI, but there's no harm in using it as an assist, just like we programmers do with code (and code reviews).
Re: Seems fair (Score:3)
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As a programmer, I too see that AI makes a lot of mistakes. But it still helps me save time.
Would you say that AI helps you save time, overall, despite its mistakes?
Re: Seems fair (Score:1)
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You mistook my meaning. I think it's great that teachers now have AI tools to help them do their jobs more efficiently.
Let them "cheat", the education system is a joke. (Score:1)
This is the punchline.
Gold star for everyone!
If your exams are so easy students can cheat on them, that is a professor problem.
I had classes in college where you could have had the internet and phone a friend and still probably would not pass the exam without properly knowing the material; I respected those subjects.
The classes where you were not allowed to bring a back pack, nor wear a baseball hat, and only could use a #2 pencil to the exam were a joke; nothing taught, nothing learned.
If you want to pay t
okay? (Score:1)
So the solution has been proven - in-class exams using bluebooks. I'm not seeing an problem. If anything, this shows that testing is even more effective at culling the fraudulent morons, who can assume their proper place, sitting on a sheet of cardboard on Thayer Street rattling a tin cup.
Same thing works in K-12, though I understand those teachers are overworked -- but there is a solution just go back to Scantron tests. As long as no computer is used there is no risk of cheating.
Part of a bigger crisis in education (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a fundamental crisis going on in colleges that has nothing to do with AI.
The professor wants a classroom full of students who actually care about what he has to teach. The administration wants those students, their paying customers, to keep paying.
Universities have had this crisis brewing for a long time:
We made a college degree necessary for most desirable jobs. Universities loved this, college degrees grew at a massive rate, the cost of them grew even more.
Then all at once they realize that hey, the students who are there, don't actually *want* to be there. They just want to buy their diplomas and get out, and act accordingly.
They can't have it both ways, this tension has been a thing for a long time.
Something fundamental has to give.
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I think you CAN have it both ways: Announce at the beginning: "If you want, I will give you a B- (or whatever grade works) but to get this grade you must promise never to set foot in the class and never to speak about the topic of this course with anyone on campus. Otherwise, we will explore the syllabus completely free from the stench of grade-grubbers who are at the school in order to get some sort of imagined advantage in the world." Then, no tests. Grades or evaluations will be felt out as the class goe
not really (Score:1)
This is freaking Brown University. It is really, really hard to get to that level of academic achievement without a genuine desire to learn. It's like thinking you could play guitar as well as, say Randy Bachman of Bachman Turner Overdrive* without actually enjoying playing the guitar. It just won't happen.
Now, if you're talking students at The Ohio State University, yes there is a problem.
So, anyway, kick the cheaters to the curb and continue. Not a hard problem to solve as the professor showed.
* Randy mad
Re: not really (Score:3)
Ironically enough, my best, most motivated student by far was the "nepo baby" in the class, the child of a very famous Hollywood star.
Re: not really (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember being a college student....many years ago....
I was really into computer science, and also philosophy. I took those classes with great eagerness. Oh and foreign language too.
I couldn't care less about the other crap they required me to take in order to make my education well-rounded. Physics just didn't do it for me. I was a native English speaker already and learned nothing from the lit and creative writing classes. There was Art appreciation, mythology, some phys ed...all blow off classes that I took only because they were required. I am sure those professors found me unmotivated. Oh, economics was tolerable, but I never would have taken it without having been forced, and learned nothing useful beyond the high-school level economics I had already taken.
It's all different now. I read up on all kinds of brainy topics just for fun, including the stuff I blew off in college. I realize I am just one data point, but it seems consistent with available evidence: college-age kids are, by and large, sick of school and only motivated to chase their specific passions. Forcing well-roundedness on them is mostly just a way of forcing them to spend more money on elements of an education that they won't retain or use in their chosen career paths. Offer well-rounded educations only to those who seek it, and we will see engagement increase across the board.
If we are truly worried about people being unprepared to face the adult world, we should be teaching classes in investing and personal finance management, nutrition, only the most basic phys ed (how to jog and lift weights), maybe some household maintenance. These are all practical skills that we are supposed to learn from our parents, but often don't. Maybe some schools teach some of this these days, but they didn't when I was in school. Well they did teach phys ed but way over did it. Forcing kids who don't like sports to play sports is not helping them. Teaching people why aerobic exercise is good and how to lift weights with proper form absolutely is helping them.
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If we are truly worried about people being unprepared to face the adult world, we should be teaching classes in investing and personal finance management, nutrition, only the most basic phys ed (how to jog and lift weights), maybe some household maintenance. These are all practical skills that we are supposed to learn from our parents, but often don't. Maybe some schools teach some of this these days, but they didn't when I was in school. Well they did teach phys ed but way over did it. Forcing kids who don't like sports to play sports is not helping them. Teaching people why aerobic exercise is good and how to lift weights with proper form absolutely is helping them.
This should be covered in K-12. College/University is for advanced knowledge and more specialization. Though I agree, parents should teach their children these things and the k-12 should just add to it.
Lisa Gets an "A" (Score:2)
Lisa Gets an "A"
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It is really, really hard to get to that level of academic achievement without a genuine desire to learn.
No, it's not.
You can only buy instruction, not an education (Score:1)
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Yes. For-profit education does not work. It lowers standards to the minimum possible and cheats all those that could lean and understand more. The incentives are entirely perverted. Would be better to just charge them the tuition and hand them that (worthless) paper, as that would at least not require years of tiresome rituals in between.
Or we could do it right. That means those with no skills or no motivation do not pass. That also means the paper at the end is not worthless. Bit that requires firing all t
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My generation solved this with one simple trick (Score:1)
It occurs to me that I had an advantage over kids today, in that there were different forces at play, such that I had to take tests in classrooms, so it was either learn shit or get a bad grade. I don't think of the forces that put me into classrooms as all that exceptional, but I think the young 'uns really do have one really unusual one, that I (as well as my parents' generation, now that I think of) just, somehow, skipped right over.
You see, back in my day, we did a lot less of this ..
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I'm wondering, what can we do to help younger people be terrified out of their minds all the time instead of just in common-sense situations like crowds? We need to help them understand that they're safe nowhere, so they're not-particularly-unsafe anywhere, so they can show the fuck up and take exams.
That's been happening since the 70s with climate hysteria - we've been told for decades that the world is going to end in 10 years, that we're hitting a tipping point in 10 years, etc, etc, etc.
And let's be clear: the climate is absolutely changing, but it's clear nobody knows the mid term timing of larger impacts.
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"A Modest Proposal"
Oh Sure (Score:2)
Come on. You don't need AI to cheat on a take-home test. The problem isn't the AI.
Re: Oh Sure (Score:2)
2 years of Spanish, can't speak a word. (Score:2)
My son used Google Translate extensively during his remote (COVID) year 1 Spanish class. Told him not to, but you can't ride the kid all day with a job to keep.
OTOH, the school district provided him with a substitute teacher for the class who didn't speak Spanish either, so there's enough blame to go around.
But after missing ALL of the education from year 1, he had no foundation for year 2, and kept cheating his way through.
I'm disappointed, but he'll bear the cost as he goes on. I hope he's learned his les
Re:2 years of Spanish, can't speak a word. (Score:4, Interesting)
I took four years of German, didn't cheat, had a B+ average, and three years after I graduated high school I could pretty much just count, say the alphabet, and knew maybe a dozen phrases. If you're not actively using the language, even a little, it's not going to stick whether you cheated or not.
Re: 2 years of Spanish, can't speak a word. (Score:2)
Agreed.
After years where, for example, I delivered flowers, but couldn't tell the Latina maid "put the flowers on the...uh...um...", I resolved to do better.
Currently residing in a pretty diverse area. I take every (rare) opportunity to use my Spanish, and regularly converse in my head, so it's something like ready when the need arises.
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I took a few years of French, got a B being able to neither speak, write nor read it. Or understand it spoken. I could basically wing it on a few words and with what crossover there is with English. Didn't cheat, but frankly no idea what you have to not do to get a C.
mon pere est un poubellier
aw yeah he's still got it. B level French right there!
He was not by the way.
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Education needs reinvention (Score:2)
The old way of sending a student home to write a paper is dead.
Imagine a future where each student has an AI tutor, precisely matched to the student's talents and weaknesses.
The tutor would know exactly how the student is progressing throughout the process.
If a student was learning quickly, the tutor would present the material faster.
If the student was struggling, the tutor would focus on the problem areas.
No exams would be needed.
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Imagine a future where each student has an AI tutor, precisely matched to the student's talents and weaknesses.
That sounds amazing, but it's still in the future.
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For anything that requires actual thinking (i.e. anything worthwhile), this is in the distant future, distant enough that nobody can give an honest timeline. May also be "never".
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Had to read that twice. You are referring not to my statement, but to the OP above, correct?
I agree, this is extremely effective, because the average person does routinely massively overestimate what they understand and hence does not due checks that were sorely needed for actual understanding. One could argue that this effect also plays a major role in the current (and past) AI hype even happening ...
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The old way of sending a student home to write a paper is dead.
Not really. I have done that just last semester with good success. The trick is to have them discuss the topic with you afterwards and answer questions on things. And it must be quite clear that if they have no clue about what they did or wrote, they fail. Requires a non-lazy instructor, obviously.
are you kidding? (Score:4, Interesting)
i teach university classes and the majority of the students use AI for just about everything. if you put them in a situation where they cant use AI they fail utterly. they are completely addicted/dependent on AI. they have no ability to problem solve anymore.
Re:are you kidding? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not arguing your observation, but, quite frankly, what are these people doing at a university? The purpose of university studies is to give you at the very least some mental independence and capabilities. The students you describe will only be getting a worthless piece of paper at the end.
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To be fair, many jobs that require a degree don't require the degree. You'll learn what you need on the job and that's that. This is especially true for many jobs that don't require much thinking. Here are the steps, you do them, and that's it. Very little "thinking" required at all.
If a business just requires a degree so they can make assumptions about potential hires, they'll end up with lousy workers. There are post in their thread talking about people that doing hiring and how they've not hired some of
Education as mere job training (Score:2)
Yes, I understand that it's reasonable for people to attend university in order to get well-paying jobs. But regarding higher education primarily as a route to impressive wealth, an easy life, and early retirement is a real problem.
There was a time when at least a significant portion of university students - and even college students - chose courses and careers based on aptitude, interest, and even passion. Now, it seems that most young people are looking for the shortest path of least resistance to an easy
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Agreed. You get an education for _yourself_ first. Anything else is doing it wrong. If a subject does not give you some excitement, stay out, you will never be good at it.
Incidentally, most of my CS/IT Security students are quite fed up with LLMs. They want to do stuff themselves, not follow instructions a machine gave them.
Average of 65? (Score:2)
âoe Previously, the average final exam score had never dropped below 65 percent.â
This professor sounds like a world class dick to intentionally fail most of his students.
My guess is that this guy has a reputation for structuring his classes in the most egregious ways and this year he decided he wanted to just royally screw his students by lulling them into a false sense of security.
If he actually wanted his students to not use AI, all of his tests would have been in person as per the syllabus.
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This comment just shows you have no clue how teaching works. The students that failed or dropped out are mentally lazy and deserve nothing less. I take it you also are in that group?
LLMs separate the stupid from the rest ... (Score:2)
The stupid being the ones that think that academic success only involves getting the grade and nothing else.
Re: LLMs separate the stupid from the rest ... (Score:2)
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Agreed. On all of that. I mean, this is "all trophy, no actual accomplishment". I really do not understand that. I mean, a trophy is nice, but that is not what I do things for. It is the actual accomplishments that matter. It is a bit like the difference between reputation and honor: Reputation is what others think about you, honor is what you know about your own actions. This is all reputation, no honor.
Looking at the definition of narcissism, that does not even seem to be it. Or not by itself. It seems to
Re: and the illegals? do yo blame 'the government' (Score:2)
Whatâ(TM)s the actual problem here? (Score:1)
The students had a problem to solve, they used AI to solve it, and it appears to a very high standard.
If this happened in a work environment everyone would be happy itâ(TM)s saved time and cost, and delivered a solution.
This suggests to me that the problem wasnâ(TM)t sufficiently hard enough if AI can solve easily and correctly, so the teacher needs to be either teaching something else now as the subject matter is considered fully solved from a theoretical point or needs to make it much harder or
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The students had a problem to solve, they used AI to solve it, and it appears to a very high standard.
If this happened in a work environment everyone would be happy itÃ(TM)s saved time and cost, and delivered a solution.
Because the goal/course is to learn a particular topic, not to use AI to solve basic problems. Yeah AI can do better than noobs at many tasks, but you don't become a non noob by using AI to do all the tasks. You remain a noob with AI forever.
The professor doesn't want the problem solve
The challenge (Score:2)
Is to set coursework and exams that are specifically crafted to exploit where AI is weak or prone to hallucinate.
You do not ban cheating, because those who cheat will inevitably find ways to circumvent the ban.
Rather, you exploit the properties of the mechanisms of cheating to ensure that those who actually understand the ideas are marked relatively highly (regardless of whether they reach the textbook conclusion) and whose who do not understand the ideas cannot do well even if they give what is in the text
Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory (Score:2)
What the hell is that? Is it akin to Women Studies?
You can't ignore human nature (Score:3)
With all due respect to Prof. Serrano, he's being naive, like a whole lot of his peers. He just got hit smack in the face with a case study in human nature, and he can't get his head around it.
Academic integrity exists on a Gaussian curve. For that matter, so can most of human group behavior. The people at the top of the curve scrupulously obey the rules, and the people at the bottom will violate them without hesitation for personal advantage. The overwhelming majority in the middle will follow the rules, but only so long as they perceive that the rules are applied fairly, and the people caught violating them are punished.
Cheating runs along the same scale. Most universities have honor codes, but an unenforced honor code is meaningless. A professor's job is to create an environment where students perceive that academic integrity is being enforced. That's what keeps most of them from cheating, not a signature on a honor code statement.
Prof. Serrano's first mistake was thinking that most of his students were inherently honest. They're not. Like all college students, they were only honest so long as they believed the rules were enforceable. AI changed all of that, and every student in the middle of the curve, even including most at the top, gave up. After all, why let your peers get better grades than you with almost no effort?
Serrano's second mistake was believing that the administration at Brown University was going to give failing grades to nearly a hundred students, or perhaps even suspend them from classes for a semester, and then have to face a lot of angry parents. Plus, how did Serrano expect to prove they cheated? A poor performance on a final exam doesn't necessarily mean they cheated on a midterm. I personally wouldn't turn the case over to an honor council based on such evidence.
Serrano learned his lesson the hard way. Take-home exams are dead and gone. The only evaluations you can trust are the ones that happen in a classroom, under supervision, without access to a smartphone or laptop. Serrano wanted to believe in an academic ideal that never truly existed. Artificial intelligence is forcing a whole lot of faculty in higher education to face a very uncomfortable truth about their jobs.
How appropriate (Score:2)
The ideologically-captured getting cheated by the perpetually-distracted using the means of bullsh!t-production created by the overly greedy!
Makes the good resentful (Score:2)
Maybe written and timed tests aren't the answer? (Score:2)
Re: Maybe written and timed tests aren't the answe (Score:2)
Lazy kids (Score:2)
Issue Students With Kevlar... (Score:2)
anxiety about being in a classroom after a gunman killed two students and injured nine in a December mass shooting at Brown
Issue students with kevlar and side arms and make them do their exams in person.
Re:"Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory" (Score:5, Informative)
Even if you hate welfare, and want to kill everyone on it - studying the economics of it will help you do that.
Also, this is not about a Brown professor, it's about Brown students.
Re:"Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory" (Score:4, Funny)
This can only get unintentionally funnier.
Re:"Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory" (Score:4, Funny)
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Also, this is not about a Brown professor, it's about Brown students.
This can only get unintentionally funnier.
Someone will report this story to Stephen Miller and the Trump administration, but spell it "brown" and the whole school gets deported.
See what happens when you feed the AC trolls? (Score:2)
This can only get unintentionally...
more racist.
FTFY, even though I think AC was being intentional.
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If you can't laugh at this you have no humanity.
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I think you're missing the point. If you have to hide your identity to make a joke, then it ain't funny.
Okay, that is an absolute statement and I'm pert' shure you should be able to come up with a counterexample. In the case of humor, I think there is even a particular class of joke that actually hinges on the anonymity of the person making the joke. I haven't seen any examples in a long time, but I think I have some sort of vague memory of such.
Yet my fundamental position remains that freedom of speech sho
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Since we're well beyond non sequitur now, I grew up in Africa, btw.
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Eh?
Re:"Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory" (Score:5, Informative)
I must admit, the title of the course sounds a bit political, but I thought best to look it up before leaping wildly to conclusions:
While the words "welfare" and "social choice" might sound like political buzzwords to a layperson, in academia they refer to highly formal, mathematical subfields of standard microeconomic theory.
Taught for decades by Professor Roberto Serrano, it is known as a rigorous, proof-heavy class rather than a political forum. If you recently heard about the class in the news, it is likely due to an academic integrity controversy involving a take-home exam and suspected student use of generative AI, rather than anything related to politics.
Re:"Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory" (Score:4, Insightful)
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I must admit, the title of the course sounds a bit political
Even courses about politics aren't political unless the people interpreted it as such. "Mathematical" "Proof Heavy" Sounds like woke DEI leftist nonsense if you ask me.
Kindest Regards
Linda McMahon
Re: "Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory" (Score:2)
economics.
why does it exist.
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From an anarcho-capitalist and Austrian perspective, the attack of these subjects is severe. The core criticism is that welfare economics often dresses political value judgments in mathematics and presents the result as scientific optimization.
The Austrian objection starts earlier than the libertarian one.
There is no measurable quantity called âoesocial welfare.â
You value a steak dinner. I value the money more. We trade. Both reveal, through action, that each prefers the new situation.
Economics ob
Re: "Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory" (Score:2)
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I believe it was well fitting, completely generated by AI.