There was a time in the last century when we, quite foolishly, believed incineration to be a superior means of waste disposal than landfills. And, for decades, many of America’s most disadvantaged have been paying for those decisions with with their li…
ChatGPT (barely) passed graduate business and law exams
There’s plenty of concern that OpenAI’s ChatGPT could help students cheat on tests, but just how well would the chatbot fare if you asked it to write a graduate-level exam? It would pass — if only just. In a newly published study, University of Minnesota law professors had ChatGPT produce answers for graduate exams at four courses in their school. The AI passed all four, but with an average grade of C+. In another recent paper, Wharton School of Business professor Christian Terwiesch found that ChatGPT passed a business management exam with a B to B- grade. You wouldn’t want to use the technology to impress academics, then.
The research teams found the AI to be inconsistent, to put it mildly. The University of Minnesota group noted that ChatGPT was good at addressing “basic legal rules” and summarizing doctrines, but floundered when trying to pinpoint issues relevant to a case. Terwiesch said the generator was “amazing” with simple operations management and process analysis questions, but couldn’t handle advanced process questions. It even made mistakes with 6th grade-level math.
There’s room for improvement. The Minnesota professors said they didn’t adapt text generation prompts to specific courses or questions, and believed students could get better results with customization. At Wharton, Terwiesch said the bot was adept at changing answers in response to human coaching. ChatGPT might not ace an exam or essay by itself, but a cheater could have the system generate rough answers and refine them.
Both camps warned that schools should limit the use of technology to prevent ChatGPT-based cheating. They also recommended altering the questions to either discourage AI use (such as focusing on analysis rather than reciting rules) or increase the challenge for those people leaning on AI. Students still need to learn “fundamental skills” rather than leaning on a bot for help, the University of Minnesota said.
The study groups still believed that ChatGPT could have a place in the classroom. Professors could teach pupils how to rely on AI in the workplace, or even use it to write and grade exams. The tech could ultimately save time that could be spent on the students, Terwiesch explains, such as more student meetings and new course material.
Twitter engineers can still use ‘GodMode’ to tweet as any account, claims whistleblower
Twitter has a new whistleblower, as another former employee has sounded the alarm about security issues, according toThe Washington Post. The new complainant, who has spoken with Congress and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), says any Twitter engineer still has access to an internal program — formerly called “GodMode” — that lets them tweet from any account.
The whistleblower’s complaint alleges GodMode (now renamed to “privileged mode”) remains on the laptop of any engineer who wants it, requiring only a production computer and a simple code change from “FALSE” to “TRUE.” Screenshots of the code, included in an October complaint filed with the FTC, show a warning to anyone attempting to use it: “THINK BEFORE YOU DO THIS.”
This isn’t the first time Twitter security has drawn scrutiny. In 2020, teenage crypto scammers hacked the company’s internal systems, sending fake tweets from the accounts of President Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Musk and others. Twitter’s at-the-time executives said they had fixed the issue and launched a “comprehensive information security program that is reasonably designed to protect the security, privacy, confidentiality, and integrity of nonpublic consumer information.”
However, Twitter’s first whistleblower, Peiter Zatko, disputed that. Another engineer claimed at the time that GodMode was still widely available.
Justin Sullivan via Getty Images
The new complainant’s filing says the incident led to Twitter reopening the case, which sparked the discovery that engineers could also delete or restore anyone’s tweets. (Regular Twitter users can’t do either.) He also claims Twitter can’t log who, if anyone, uses or abuses any of the special privileges.
The new whistleblower’s complaint was filed by Whistleblower Aid, the same nonprofit firm representing Zatko. The FTC is reportedly interviewing former Twitter employees about the allegations.
Tesla’s Model Y could fall foul of new EV tax credit eligibility rules
Certain variants of Tesla’s Model Y may not qualify for the $7,500 federal EV tax credit based on the IRS’s latest guidelines, a situation that Elon Musk has called “messed up.” It looks as though the five-seat Long Range version of the hatchback is too expensive as a car and not considered an SUV, so it falls outside the current guidelines. That could change, though, as the rules won’t be finalized until March 2023.
The IRS has divided vehicles into two categories: vans, SUVs and pickup trucks under $80,000, and other vehicles under $55,000. For the first category, the vehicle must have 4-wheel drive or be rated at more than 6,000 pounds of gross weight. It also has to meet four of five other characteristics, most notably front and rear axle clearances of 18 centimeters or higher and a running clearance of at least 20 centimeters (no Model Y meets these specs).
Internal Revenue Service
According to the IRS, only the 7-seat variants of the Model Y qualify as SUVs in the category up to $80,000, while the 5-seat vehicles (Long Range, AWD and Performance) are in the $55,000 section. The 7-seaters comfortably fall under the $85,000 limit, but all the 5-seaters exceed the $55,000 price, so they don’t qualify.
Tesla doesn’t have a specific AWD variant of the Model Y in the US (both the Long Range and Performance models are AWD), so it’s not clear which model the IRS is referring to. The 5- and 7-seat versions cost the same, starting at $65,990 for the Long Range version before destination and order charges.
Critics are pointing out that far more polluting hybrid vehicles qualify for the tax credits, including two Jeeps, the Audi Q5 e Quattro, BMW X5 xDrive45e and Ford’s Escape PHEV. However, if someone buys a Jeep Wrangler with 56 MPGe (23 MPG after the battery is depleted) instead of a Tesla Model Y with 122 MPGe, then the government clearly isn’t doing the most it can to reduce carbon emissions. The IRS has invited consumers to comment on the matter, and Musk encouraged people to do so in a tweet.