this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2025
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Fuck AI

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This year, about 1,400 essays got bizarrely wrong scores and had to be reassessed. You guessed it — a contractor scored them with AI!

The contractor, Cognia, got $36.5 million this year to mark essays, and they did that by just throwing them into the chatbot...

How did the contractor get caught out on this year’s disaster? One third-grade teacher went and checked her students’ essays and saw the bizarre scores. She alerted her principal, who sent it up to the district. In the end, 1,400 essays got remarked.

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[–] WolfmanEightySix@piefed.social 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Apart from the AI thing, 36.5 million for 1400 essays?

Thats over $26k an essay. WTF?

[–] elevenbones@sh.itjust.works 17 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

It says 1400 essays were scored wrong, doesn't say how many essays they had total. It doesn't say that all that money was from the same school.

[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago

Looks like there are about 921,180 public school K-12 students in Massachusetts (at least as of 2021-2022). If they all sat the test, that's about $40 per test. But state standardized testing in my state is only administered in, like, five grades; so probably closer to $80 per test. And that's generous, because kids don't have to take it every year if they passed it the previous year, and they also alternate some subjects year to year.

In any case, even $80 is definitely enough that, if I lived in Massachusetts, I'd assume a human was looking at each essay. Insist, even.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago

If they were scored by an AI, chances are that way more than just 1400 were scored wrong, but that this has not yet been uncovered.

[–] WolfmanEightySix@piefed.social 3 points 3 weeks ago

Clearly I can’t read.