[alicebot-aiethics] Computers vs. human grading school essays...

[Kim Sullivan]

> And at the next class is told by the instructor that she would have
> failed the Regents because the essay was too good.  She needed to tone
> it down.  The instructor wasn't trying to say that was right or ethical
> or anything else, he wsa basically just trying to help her out by
> telling her that if you do much more than simple declarative sentances
> you won't do well on the Regents.

This is horrible. Sometimes, you know, I'm glad that I don't live in the
States... What you basically say is that since the test's objective is to
determine wether the subject can read and write, anything that falls outside
this narrow scope is determined to fail? I don't know about the details of
it, so I  probably can't make an accurate asessment (sp?) of the situation,
but it seems to me like any creative effort is punished by low grades - so
the objective is to filter out 'too creative' people, explain them the rules
(of society in general?) and let them try again to see if they have
conformed.
How can people who grade this test (i got the notion it is graded by humans)
consciously do something like this? If it was done by a computer, OK. But
'intelligent' beings?
I'm starting to wonder how a nation with such a bizzare schoolsystem can
produce a quite large amount of good scientists & bussinesmen? Statistics?

Kim