By: Chloe Arneson, Peak Associate
SFU News —-
In a groundbreaking move that’s set to change the way we communicate with our fellow students online, Canvas has unveiled its new chatbot to rid academia of dreaded copycat commenters.
Are you tired of staying up all night to devise a creative response for your discussion boards only to see later that five other students received full marks by telling you how much they agreed with your position? Well, Canvas’ new bot, EchoChamber, has your back!
Does this sound familiar to you?
“Just to echo what you said about the discussion we had earlier in class, I think it’s important to remember that there is a certain kind of duality in this conversation that is not often acknowledged, and it’s key to understanding the differing perspectives blah blah blah.” This plagiarism detection software promises to put an end to all things “circling back to your first point” and “to piggyback off of that.”
As you know, it’s hard to keep up with weekly readings. But you don’t do it just so someone else can take the top 50 most used words in class conversations and hot-glue them to each other. But how exactly does Echo put the ban in banter? This digital enforcer patrols the app’s discussion boards with the eye of a watchful hawk, swiftly identifying copycat comments. Echo will leave students friendly yet embarrassing reminders under their posts. Some of the bot’s featured phrases include: “You’ve got a voice worth hearing! Tell us what you think” and “It looks like someone else cooked here.”
It’s important to remember that being boring is just as valid as being quirky. EchoChamber does not prevent users from agreeing with their classmates. It simply calls them out when their point starts sounding like they fed it through a word scrambler.
The developers have announced that this new feature will launch by the end of the month, so there’s no more need to worry about carrying a bunch of freeloaders through their degrees. This revolutionary new technology is ready to help you showcase your academic brilliance on the discussion boards nobody really reads anyway!
EchoChamber does not guarantee that your lukewarm take about SFU’s removal of hand towels from residence will impress your PoliSci professor, just because it’s original doesn’t mean it’s intelligent, try reading the textbook.
