Atharv Dua, Q1 Blog #2 - You are now a rich, white male
With the club rush this week, I’m sure many of you will be rushing to join new clubs (I’m hilarious, I know). I’m pretty sure almost every single underclassman is going to be inside the rotunda this week during lunch. Why? To explore their interests? You wish! It’s all for the “college apps”. I can’t even blame them, I did and sometimes even do things just so it looks good on my resume. Get good grades and standardized test scores. Get “leadership positions” in activities that you’re supposed to start at the age of 12…minutes. Write killer essays with the help of a $10,000 tutor. And then you’ll get into college! Or not - considering the acceptance rates today. I still love the American system though because I believe competition breeds creativity: who would have committed 20+ hours to extracurriculars without the threat of college applications?
All this was before we added ChatGPT into the mix. I recently read this article from the Cornell Chronicle: “AI-generated college admissions essays sound male, privileged”. In a study at Cornell, they used thousands of AI generated and human essays and found patterns within the data: they had large similarities to those written by privileged white males.. Do you know why almost every college has multiple “supplemental essays”? It’s to get to know you better. Your academics, activities and even other people (through recommendations) have spoken for you, but YOU haven’t spoken for you, which is why many universities have different essays, as they all value different things. Isn’t ChatGPTing the essays sort of like throwing away the one opportunity to show the college your identity?
AI has to get its training data from somewhere. It gets it from chats with its users, and the ironic thing is that the users seem to be rich, white males. That is so counterintuitive I actually laughed when I first looked at the article: the people who can afford to pay for “essay reviewers”, the people who could afford to pay to beef up their resume are the ones giving ChatGPT their essays for refinement (since training data isn’t derived from the responses that AI spits out, but from the inputs it takes from users like us, which likely means that that demographic gives them the largest amount of requests for refinement). Essentially, we’re throwing away our chance to show our identity to colleges in favor of the identities of rich, white males. Not only are college admissions committees not - for lack of a better word - stupid, but using AI for the essays that are supposed to be a deep reflection of who we are limits their understanding of us. Day by day, our identity and privacy is being endangered by AI, with deepfakes that can be made with a stable internet connection and the dollar you found on the street. Let’s at least keep the one part of identity that high schoolers can keep, and that we display through our essays: our personalities.
Hi Atharv, I found your blog to be one of the most relatable pieces of texts I've read in a while. Frankly the threat of college apps has been looming over my head for around five years now. I'm pretty sure I think about college apps more than I think about myself. I do admire your ability to find beauty in the system. As skewed as our college application system may be, it is true that competition allows the best to rise to the top. Most of us produce our best work when we are pushed against a wall. I can also relate to your disappointment regarding the exploitation of AI, truthfully speaking these tech giants have never had our best interest at heart, and now its impacting our future.
ReplyDeleteThe title for your blog this week probably stands out the most; when I first saw it I was immediately confused. A rich, white male? What? After reading through it, I was delighted with the personal (and I may even call it snarky) voice throughout. I did end up arriving at a question, though: do the “rich, white male” college essays do significantly better or worse than those written one hundred percent by humans? That would have been an interesting idea to explore, though I do know that 500 words is really not a lot. Regardless, you gave the AI topic (which has grown just a little old with how many articles we have annotated on it for class) an interesting spin!
ReplyDeleteAtharv, this is one of the funniest blogs I have read during this quarter. It started with your captivating title, while it might sound a little weird, I relate to it. At times I wish I was a rich white male. When it comes to the topic of college apps, Asian children have developed a level of PTSD from hearing the term and the pressure placed on us by either family members or society. I appreciate how you look on the bright side in the system that seems rigged in favor of a small portion of applicants in the college application process. The exploitation of AI will truly be the downfall of the human race and their ability to think and be human.
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