AI Homework • Hacker News Board

Re: AI Homework

#81

Post by dgudkov » Mon, Dec 05, 2022, 5:55 PM UTC

coffeefirst wrote: post #59

Well, suppose there's two reasons his daughter has this assignment. 1. To learn the content of European history. For this, a chatbot is no different than Google, Wikipedia, or a dusty leather almanac. They do a job, they have known limitations, and you can use them deliberately. This doesn't concern me. 2. To learn how to write, capturing complex ideas and presenting them clearly. This is a skill that takes decades t…

>For this, a chatbot is no different than Google...

Exactly. AI chatbots look like something that can replace Google search and become the next big thing after search engines[+]. Like Google, AI chatbots will crawl and ingest the web. They won't be able to synthesize anything new, but it can be a convenient, very human-friendly way of querying the global knowledge base that the internet has become.

[+] If AI chatbots become successful, they will definitely start injecting ads and spoil everything again.

Re: AI Homework

#82

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Dec 05, 2022, 5:55 PM UTC

fauntle wrote: post #55

ThalesX wrote: post #8

I love talking to GPT, but I've tried using it for some serious stuff (research, biz-dev) and less than serious stuff (Dungeons & Dragons) and the magic is still there but it has obvious blind spots which might be solved in the future but we're talking about the present. I am wholly amused how everyone got on that dude from Google that accused the AI of being sentient and Google about not caring, and now you have hug…

The guy who suggested the AI was sentient was clearly wrong, and strange in a bad way. ChatGPT enthusiasts are just having a good time with a text generation AI. How did you even come up with this comparison?

[deleted]

Re: AI Homework

#83

Post by adverbly » Mon, Dec 05, 2022, 5:55 PM UTC

Something I've noticed about chat ais vs direct search is that because a chat ai is a blackbox, I can't dig into an answer's source at all.

With a search, I can read the wikipedia sources or I know the forum, or the poster. But with an AI, it's a dead end and it sucks. I can ask people how they know something, but AI training data is invisible. It doesn't know how it knows something.

There is this oracle with a 10% chance of being wrong, and if I'm not already an expert in what it's talking about I have no idea of when that is, and no way to dig into things. It's the only source of truth, and never gives me any other threads or rabbit holes to go down.

The only recourse is asking follow up questions, so you're trapped in there in a learning box entirely in the bot's control. Not sure how I feel about that. I like that google sends me other places so I get exposed to different things.

Re: AI Homework

#84

Post by alain94040 » Mon, Dec 05, 2022, 5:56 PM UTC

rednerrus wrote: post #36

thundergolfer wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over the weekend Twitter was 30% ChatGPT screenshots and 20% engineers frothing about how ChatGPT would replace programming, article writing, even Google Search. Such engineers must be juniors, or have persisted in their life with a totally wrong idea of how engineering is done and engineering is built. I can't imagine thinking that one could build software systems or essay arguments by trusting an AI system you don'…

Couldn't this help a 10x engineer become a 100x engineer? The secret is still going to be in understanding what to ask for and ensuring that what gets spit out works. It's just going to be so much faster. Is there anyplace in the world for a .5x developer or even a 1x developer in a chatgpt world?

It may help a 10X engineer. The code is not what's hard, it's figuring the correct data structures that matters (also known as architecture). Once you got the data structures correct, the code mostly writes itself, and I can see an AI do that part for you. That could be indeed a productivity multiplier.

Re: AI Homework

#85

Post by jcranmer » Mon, Dec 05, 2022, 5:56 PM UTC

ahelwer wrote: post #13

jcranmer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this were a test question, the response given would be marked wrong, likely with no partial credit awarded. It's that egregiously wrong, even if the attribution is perhaps understandable.

Well thankfully I haven't been in school for over a decade at this point, so rarely (never?) encounter these hard-cutoff no-second-chances trivia situations. I operate in the real world, where continually making something that's not-quite-correct then refining it and fixing the errors is how basically everything is accomplished.

> I operate in the real world, where continually making something that's not-quite-correct then refining it and fixing the errors is how basically everything is accomplished.

This isn't really not-quite-correct; it's egregiously wrong in the central aspect of the thesis. Refining and fixing it requires understanding that, and how, it's wrong--and if you have that level of knowledge, why are you using a tool to write this kind of thing? It's not going to save you much time from actually writing the whole thing yourself.

Re: AI Homework

#86

Post by wizzwizz4 » Mon, Dec 05, 2022, 5:56 PM UTC

dslowell wrote: post #35

ThalesX wrote: post #8

I love talking to GPT, but I've tried using it for some serious stuff (research, biz-dev) and less than serious stuff (Dungeons & Dragons) and the magic is still there but it has obvious blind spots which might be solved in the future but we're talking about the present. I am wholly amused how everyone got on that dude from Google that accused the AI of being sentient and Google about not caring, and now you have hug…

> I am wholly amused how everyone got on that dude from Google that accused the AI of being sentient and Google about not caring, and now you have huge names in the tech industry kinda drooling over this with what I believe to be the same passion. Is it strange? Someone can be extremely impressed with how a Boston Dynamic robot moves, while also being entirely unconvinced by claims that the lifelike movement is a sig…

> while also being entirely unconvinced by claims that the lifelike movement is a sign of sentience.

Well, would one suspect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Locomotion of being sentient?

Re: AI Homework

#87

Post by aaronharnly » Mon, Dec 05, 2022, 5:57 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #49

Zero Trust Homework is a fascinating idea, as described in the article, but I don't know how many teachers will adapt because they'll just end up confusing themselves. When you read too many lies, you might start forgetting the truth yourself. Instead, what I think there will be a much greater short term market for, is a system that will run the teacher's homework assignment (with variations) against GPT-3, ChatGPT,…

It will likely be difficult to detect LLM-generated text on any individual piece of writing.

That probably means the approach that will take hold is more systemic — have some writing take place under more controlled conditions, then use authorship analysis to detect writing that is inconsistent with the controlled text. It will not be easy!

Re: AI Homework

#88

Post by gamegoblin » Mon, Dec 05, 2022, 5:57 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #49

Zero Trust Homework is a fascinating idea, as described in the article, but I don't know how many teachers will adapt because they'll just end up confusing themselves. When you read too many lies, you might start forgetting the truth yourself. Instead, what I think there will be a much greater short term market for, is a system that will run the teacher's homework assignment (with variations) against GPT-3, ChatGPT,…

AI is quite good at style transfer. You can already give GPT a few paragraphs of your own writing and have it write in your style. Or anyone's style. Your solution may work for the naive case, but it's a losing arms race.

Re: AI Homework

#89

Post by IanCal » Mon, Dec 05, 2022, 5:58 PM UTC

adverbly wrote: post #83

Something I've noticed about chat ais vs direct search is that because a chat ai is a blackbox, I can't dig into an answer's source at all. With a search, I can read the wikipedia sources or I know the forum, or the poster. But with an AI, it's a dead end and it sucks. I can ask people how they know something, but AI training data is invisible. It doesn't know how it knows something. There is this oracle with a 10% c…

You're not trapped in there, because you're entirely free to go and research yourself. You can look up what it's telling you.

It's no more trapping than talking to a stranger who seems to be knowledgeable about a subject but doesn't hand you a list of references.

Re: AI Homework

#90

Post by 411111111111111 » Mon, Dec 05, 2022, 5:59 PM UTC

ddtaylor wrote: post #76

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #49

Zero Trust Homework is a fascinating idea, as described in the article, but I don't know how many teachers will adapt because they'll just end up confusing themselves. When you read too many lies, you might start forgetting the truth yourself. Instead, what I think there will be a much greater short term market for, is a system that will run the teacher's homework assignment (with variations) against GPT-3, ChatGPT,…

The problem is there are infinity different permutations of any outputs from GPT and such.

That's not an issue if the goal is to make a quick buck by utilizing FUD against collages.

It's probably even good, as you'll be able to upsell them the "improved detection logic" for another premium.

Classic SV tactics