I have no scientific basis for this, but I instinctively distrust anyone who calls themselves an "ethicist".
this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2024
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Especially a tethicists.
Other notable people include the "effective altruism" advocate Sam Bankman Fried who gambled away other people's money on FTX.
If you research ethics, then you're an ethicist. A little narrow minded to immediately distrust an entire field of research
Okay, so, maybe correct me if I'm wrong or scold me if I didn't read far enough but that first example of plagiarism, why didn't the author just cite the work? They were describing a basic behaviour tree (a decision tree, I think) and had a source, then didn't cite it. Why wouldn't they cite it?
Because it looks bad if your text is peppered with quotes joined by little strips of connecting material. It gives (rightly) the impression that you don't know how to digest information and put things in your own words.
Perhaps because his text was almost ad verbatim the same as the source he didn't cite. There are many more egregious segments than that which you can easily find in his vroniplag page.
They might literally have had some psychological issue, where they were trying to see how far they could push it without being caught.
Or this whole article could be a hit job - maybe the original thesis literally wrapped these sections with text saying "here is an example of a plausible attempt at plagiarism that would not get caught today - please do not quote me out of context here, m'kay?". The devil is in the details, and I for one am not volunteering to put in the amount of effort it would take to properly judge this person.
Although I bet their bosses are, now.
It makes sense - he spent so much time learning how the system worked, enough to get around it, so now he makes a living continuing the exploit. Many politicians and CEOs do the same.
Yes, but it's still wrong, if true. Plagiarism isn't just unethical, it's punitive in most places. I don't see anything bad about calling it out.
Oh absolutely. And this being in academia, they likely will lose their job over it - like that Harvard professor who was accused of a highly similar form of plagiarism (borrowing long stretches of text while failing to cite the original source material). I was pointing out the absurdity of not doing that for politicians and CEOs:-(.
plagiarism is an academic crime.
failing to cite a source is completely amoral.
No, it's also possible to be sued for plagiarism, so defacto punitive.
I would also err on the side of ethics versus morality for something that doesn't directly and intentionally do harm on its outset.
>would also err on the side of ethics versus morality
this makes no sense.
that doesnt mean its immoral.
and as far as i can tell, its not even true. you can be sued for copyright infringement but plagiarism is not codified.
Do you know the difference?
yes