Oh no!

April 26, 2012 2:49 PM

Oh no! It's finals week and I need to finish my Civil War essay immediately.
posted by elwoodwiles (41 comments total)

The Fluidity of Metafilter
Gender Norms & Racial Bias in the Study of the Modern "Metafilter"
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:50 PM on April 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

Truly Magic?
The Modern My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic : A Normative Critique.
posted by hellojed at 2:53 PM on April 26, 2012 [3 favorites]

You plugged in MetaFilter first? You are more mature than me.
posted by Blue Meanie at 2:56 PM on April 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

Truly Chain?
The Modern Markov Chain : A Normative Critique.
posted by vidur at 2:57 PM on April 26, 2012 [3 favorites]

How disappointing that it just typed out the contents of the Wikipedia article on "fisting".
posted by Fnarf at 2:57 PM on April 26, 2012 [13 favorites]

Innovative or Simply Post-Modern?
New Paradigms in the Study of "Metafilter"
posted by vidur at 2:59 PM on April 26, 2012

I wonder what will happen computers actually can spit out essays about particular topics at the push of a button.

If a computer can answer a jeopardy question (as IBM's Watson was able to do) why not a whole essay on a topic?
posted by delmoi at 3:01 PM on April 26, 2012

That's really satisfying.
posted by roll truck roll at 3:02 PM on April 26, 2012 [3 favorites]

I wonder what will happen computers actually can spit out essays about particular topics at the push of a button.

Brings back pleasant memories of "Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine".
posted by Melismata at 3:02 PM on April 26, 2012 [10 favorites]

Will the robo-graders [NY Times] give it a high score?
posted by smrtsch at 3:05 PM on April 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

 Mathematical economics is the application of mathematical methods to represent economic theories and analyze problems posed in economics. It allows formulation and derivation of key relationships in a theory with clarity, generality, rigor, and simplicity. By convention, the applied methods refer to those beyond simple geometry, such as differential and integral calculus, difference and differential equations, matrix algebra, and mathematical programming and other computational methods.


That's not bad.
posted by dismas at 3:05 PM on April 26, 2012

Oh it just spits out wikipedia. Huh.
posted by dismas at 3:06 PM on April 26, 2012

Innovative or Simply Post-Modern?
New Paradigms in the Study of "Wikipedia"
posted by never used baby shoes at 3:08 PM on April 26, 2012

Yeah, I was hoping for some Dada Engineering, not for it to just give up if you type anything that's not in Wikipedia.
posted by George_Spiggott at 3:11 PM on April 26, 2012 [2 favorites]

I miss Kant Generator
posted by thelonius at 3:13 PM on April 26, 2012

Since it responds to keystrokes, a Dada engine that uses your typing as an entropy source, so no two sessions get the same essay even on the same topic, would at least be a little bit cool.
posted by George_Spiggott at 3:15 PM on April 26, 2012 [4 favorites]

It's finals week and I have to finish my Isotropic Turbulent Flows essay immediately.
Hmm, can't help you there champ. Try another one?

Well, guess this semester isn't going to go so well...
posted by backseatpilot at 3:18 PM on April 26, 2012 [7 favorites]

I was hoping that it would 'read' what I was typing and suggest phrases or words around it, like an optional AutoComplete.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 3:35 PM on April 26, 2012

I thought it was pretty funny.

I remember a moment in my third year of university where I was super-stressed and about to go through a breakdown - and I thought, what if I tried to copy an essay? But my second thought was, you can't actually find essays online that address a real topic. None of my profs would assign something like "what is the civil war?" because that's a grade school level question. By third year, I was writing essays like "How did the English nobility diverge from the continent in terms of their legal rights and definition as a class?"

So I plugged in "nobility" to see what I got. Turns out that the wikipedia article is pretty good and does address issues of noble privileges and legal rights. Still had no citations and it wasn't structured like an argumentative essay.

But I laughed to see the text appear as I ran my fingers over the keyboard.

Now let's just see if it can handle a historiographical analysis of...
posted by jb at 3:39 PM on April 26, 2012

I'm just choosing keywords at random and bashing the keyboard like a monkey, and the results are still better than some of the first-year essays my friends would pass around when they were TAs.
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:45 PM on April 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

The Fluidity of Bullshit.
Gender Norms & Racial Bias in the Study of the Modern "Bullshit"

Uh oh, they're onto me.
posted by Winnemac at 3:47 PM on April 26, 2012 [4 favorites]

It's like bubble-wrap popping for graduate students.
posted by Wataki at 3:58 PM on April 26, 2012 [9 favorites]

Wouldn't it be faster to just Ctrl-C from Wikipedia?

/WHOOSH
posted by mrgrimm at 3:58 PM on April 26, 2012

Metafilter: The Fluidity of Bullshit.
posted by sendai sleep master at 4:09 PM on April 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

The History of Music: A Normative Critique

This is bound to get an A in my solipsism seminar.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:25 PM on April 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

Truly Astley?
The Modern Rick Astley : A Normative Critique.
posted by Joey Michaels at 4:26 PM on April 26, 2012 [2 favorites]

Worthless. It didn't know anything about Punch 'Em In The Dick.
posted by brundlefly at 4:35 PM on April 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

The Fluidity of Lance Henriksen.
Gender Norms & Racial Bias in the Study of the Modern "Lance Henriksen"
posted by brundlefly at 4:37 PM on April 26, 2012

delmoi: "If a computer can answer a jeopardy question (as IBM's Watson was able to do) why not a whole essay on a topic?"

Ted Chiang's short story "The Evolution of Human Science" does a pretty thorough job of exploring that question, too.
posted by jiawen at 4:43 PM on April 26, 2012 [2 favorites]

I remember when I was at school and we had a homework assignment to hand in and I hadn't done a lick of work. So, the day before it's due I have this great idea. I have a nearly complete set of these cards. I can trace the pictures (mon dieu! they are gory) and use the text on the back of the cards. The text was set as though it was a newspaper report. I knocked that sucker over in a couple of hours. I think I got a B for the report. The teacher also wrote a comment on the assignment. It said WHERE DID YOU GET YOUR INFORMATION!!! Heh! Although he didn't recognise the source, my classmates knew straight away.
posted by unliteral at 4:47 PM on April 26, 2012

"Pillows and Blankets" is the 14th episode of the third season of the American television series Community. It originally aired on April 5, 2012 on NBC. It was known to be the greatest event in television history.

Seems accurate to me.
posted by arto at 4:52 PM on April 26, 2012 [3 favorites]

Truly Dictionary?
The Modern Urban Dictionary : A Normative Critique.
posted by Night_owl at 5:01 PM on April 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

I typed in my thesis topic and it said
"Sorry Champ, can't help you with that one."
sniff.
posted by chapps at 5:16 PM on April 26, 2012

Innovative or Simply Post-Modern?
New Paradigms in the Study of "Mark E. Smith"
posted by thivaia at 5:23 PM on April 26, 2012

I miss Kant Generator

Nothing is ever lost:

By means of analysis, there can be no doubt that the Transcendental Deduction can thereby determine in its totality, irrespective of all empirical conditions, the Ideal of human reason. So, it must not be supposed that general logic, in view of these considerations, is the mere result of the power of our knowledge, a blind but indispensable function of the soul, by virtue of human reason. Consequently, it is not at all certain that the noumena, certainly, would be falsified, as any dedicated reader can clearly see. By means of analysis, the Categories would thereby be made to contradict philosophy, but the manifold, in particular, is a body of demonstrated doctrine, and all of it must be known a posteriori. In which of our cognitive faculties are our ideas and the Transcendental Deduction connected together? By means of analysis, Aristotle tells us that, indeed, the paralogisms are just as necessary as, with the sole exception of the Transcendental Deduction, applied logic, but the Categories would thereby be made to contradict our faculties. Because of our necessary ignorance of the conditions, it must not be supposed that, then, our experience is just as necessary as natural causes. The divisions are thus provided; all that is required is to fill them.

posted by ennui.bz at 6:22 PM on April 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

I was expecting at least some clever algorithms controlling a Markov generator.
posted by dunkadunc at 6:36 PM on April 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

I tried to type in the title of the Master's Thesis I'm desperately trying to write in a couple of weeks:

Use
 of
 hydroxymethyluracil
 in vB_EcoM_CBA120 
and
 a
 novel
 assay 
for
 elucidating 
non­-canonical
 nucleotides
 in
 phages.

"Hmm, can't help you there champ. Try another one?"

*WEEP*
posted by Blasdelb at 8:37 PM on April 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

From the "about" page: "That said, please don't ever try to use this legitimately."

I don't think they mean what they say here.
posted by TreeRooster at 10:06 PM on April 26, 2012 [2 favorites]

Why is one of the themes trying to get me to write an essay in Excel?
posted by Edison Carter at 8:02 AM on April 27, 2012

Scratch that: why are all of the themes trying to get me to write an essay in Excel?
posted by Edison Carter at 8:03 AM on April 27, 2012

Truly Mother?
The Modern Your Mother : A Normative Critique
posted by griphus at 9:56 AM on April 27, 2012