Latest news with #thesis
South China Morning Post
a day ago
- Science
- South China Morning Post
AI content detector: why does China dismiss it as ‘superstition tech'?
With the graduation season approaching, many Chinese universities have introduced regulations setting clear requirements for the proportion of artificial intelligence -generated content – or the 'AI rate', as it is called – in theses. Advertisement Some universities have used the AI rate as a deciding factor in whether a thesis is approved. The rule is intended to prevent academic misconduct, as educators have become increasingly concerned about the unregulated use of AI in producing scholarly literature, including data falsification and content fabrication, since the public debut of generative AI models such as ChatGPT However, an official publication of the Ministry of Science and Technology has warned that using AI content detectors to identify AI writing is essentially a form of 'technological superstition' that could cause many unintended side effects. AI detection tools could produce false results, the Science and Technology Daily said in an editorial last Tuesday, adding that some graduates had complained that content clearly written by them was labelled as AI-generated. Advertisement Even a very famous Chinese essay written 100 years ago was evaluated as more than 60 per cent AI-generated, when analysed by these tools, the article said.
South China Morning Post
5 days ago
- General
- South China Morning Post
‘Man mums' in China sell 5-minute hugs for US$7, gain popularity among lonely women
A growing number of young women in China are shelling out 50 yuan (US$7) for five-minute stress-relieving hugs from 'man mums'. Advertisement The so-called man mums are a trending group on mainland social media. The term originally described muscular gym-goers but it now refers to men who combine physical strength with traditionally feminine traits like gentleness and patience. A stressed-out student recently posted online that she wanted to pay for a hug from a kind, fit 'man mum' to cope with thesis pressure. 'I was hugged once in secondary school and felt safe. We can just hug for five minutes at an underground station,' she wrote. One woman said she wanted a hug from a kind, fit man to cope with the stress of her studies. Photo: The post went viral, racking up more than 100,000 comments.
The Independent
11-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Pete Hegseth accused of plagiarism by Princeton student newspaper
Pete Hegseth, the frequently embattled Trump administration defense secretary, has now been accused of plagiarism by the student newspaper of his alma mater, Princeton University. A report by The Daily Princetonian alleges that his senior thesis, submitted by Hegseth in 2003, contains eight instances of 'uncredited material, sham paraphrasing, and verbatim copying.' The outlet had the thesis, 'Modern Presidential Rhetoric and the Cold War Context,' reviewed by three plagiarism experts. They were not made aware of the identity of the author before assessing the work. In one example, Hegseth wrote about President George W. Bush's reaction to being told of the first attack on the World Trade Center in New York on 9/11. 'After Card's whisper, Bush looked distracted and somber but continued to listen to the second-graders, joking that they 'read like sixth-graders,'' wrote the now defense secretary. An article in The Washington Post, published in 2001 shortly after the attacks, reads: 'After Card's whisper, Bush looked distracted and somber but continued to listen to the second-graders read and soon was smiling again. He joked that they read so well, they must be sixth-graders.' The Post article is not cited in Hegseth's paper. Plagiarism detection models flagged 12 passages in the thesis, and the experts consulted by the newspaper found only eight of those were significant, with the remaining four being not significant enough to be concerning alone but 'fit a broader pattern of some form of plagiarism.' While the three experts all said that the passages violated Princeton's academic honesty regulations, they had differing opinions on whether the instances were serious or too minor to matter. James M. Lang, author of Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty, called the case 'borderline.' He told the Princetonian: 'There's no silver bullet here; there's no smoking gun in terms of a deep example of plagiarism,' and said there was more 'gray than black and white,' with roughly half of the examples constituting serious plagiarism and the other half only being minor. In one example where the experts differ, Hegseth wrote: 'The Berlin Wall speech represents a rare occurrence in presidential rhetoric; caught up in the emotion of the moment, Kennedy, who had just given a speech about the need for peace, got carried away and just ad-libbed the opposite, saying there was no way to work with the Communists.' The passage is similar to one from President Kennedy: Profile of Power by Richard Reeves: 'In his enthusiasm, Kennedy, who had just given a peace speech and was trying to work out a test ban treaty with the Soviets, had gotten carried away and just ad-libbed the opposite, saying there was no way to work with Communists.' Reeves is cited in the paper, even for that sentence, but there are no quotation marks. While Lang sees that incident as serious, Jonathan Bailey, who runs the website Plagiarism Today, didn't see that or any of the other seven as egregious. 'Even the ones that were more direct still typically only involve a sentence or two at a time,' Bailey told the Princetonian. The third expert consulted, Guy Curtis, a researcher at the University of Western Australia who studies academic integrity, said that the thesis violated rules as set out by the university regarding unattributed copying. 'Once you get 10 to 15 words in a row by 'accident' that happen to correspond with something else — it's probably not accidental,' Curtis said. There are no set rules at Princeton for addressing such issues after graduation, and they could be explained by sloppiness or oversight. Bailey told the paper: 'This doesn't fit the pattern of someone who went into this deliberately, maliciously trying to plagiarize their way to finishing it. This seems like it was just poor writing techniques and poor methodology.' The senior thesis is a graduation requirement for all undergraduate students. Hegseth graduated in 2003. Following the publication of the The Daily Princetonian's article, Chief Pentagon Spokesperson Sean Parnell provided a statement to Konstantin Toropin, a reporter for 'Secretary Hegseth has written five books. He's written hundreds of papers and op-eds. During the confirmation process, every word was reviewed by top left-wing law firms working in conjunction with every media outlet in the country. They found no plagiarism because there was no plagiarism,' he said. 'This is a fake story designed to distract from the DoD's historic accomplishments under President Trump and Secretary Hegseth's leadership.' The defense secretary had a difficult confirmation process on Capitol Hill and has since been plagued by scandals relating to his sharing of sensitive military operational information in Signal group chats.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Princeton Student Newspaper Accuses Pete Hegseth of Plagiarism
The newspaper for the alma mater of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth published a report on Saturday suggesting that Hegseth plagiarized elements of his senior thesis. The report in The Daily Princetonian alleges that Hegseth's senior thesis, submitted in 2003, contained eight instances of 'uncredited material, sham paraphrasing, and verbatim copying,' according to a review conducted by three plagiarism experts. One example was taken from an article in The Washington Post published shortly after 9/11. In Hegseth's thesis, he wrote, 'After Card's whisper, Bush looked distracted and somber but continued to listen to the second-graders, joking that they 'read like sixth-graders.'' The article in the Post reads, 'After Card's whisper, Bush looked distracted and somber but continued to listen to the second-graders read and soon was smiling again. He joked that they read so well, they must be sixth-graders.' Hegseth does not cite the article in his paper. While the experts consulted found that the instances of plagiarism in Hegseth's thesis violated Princeton's academic honesty regulations, their opinions on whether the violations were serious enough to matter differed. James M. Lang, author of Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty, called it a 'borderline case,' telling the Princetonian, 'There's no silver bullet here; there's no smoking gun in terms of a deep example of plagiarism.' Lang felt that there was more 'gray than black and white' in this case, with roughly half of the examples constituting serious plagiarism and the other half only being minor violations. One example that Lang felt was egregious was a passage similar to one seen in a book about President John F. Kennedy, while Jonathan Bailey, who runs the website Plagiarism Today, did not feel that example was a serious violation. While Lang felt that an example that involved similarities of 10 or 12 words raised red flags, Bailey disagreed, telling the paper, 'Even the ones that were more direct still typically only involve a sentence or two at a time.' The paper ran Hegseth's thesis through multiple plagiarism detection models that flagged 12 passages throughout the paper. Of those 12 passages, the plagiarism experts they consulted found that only eight were serious, with the other four not significant enough to warrant concern on their own, though they did say it 'fit a broader pattern of some form of plagiarism.' Hegseth's thesis was titled 'Modern Presidential Rhetoric and the Cold War Context'. In it, he analyzed the evolution of presidential speeches from the mid-20th century to the early 2000s and argued that modern presidential rhetoric is primarily influenced by prevailing global threats. As The Daily Princetonian explains, the senior thesis 'represents the capstone of the Princeton undergraduate experience and is a graduation requirement for almost all students.' Hegseth graduated from Princeton in 2003.
