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What ChatGPT reveals about the collapse of support for higher education

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Re: What ChatGPT reveals about the collapse of support for higher education

#61

Post by Jensson »

dgb23 wrote: post #60
limitedsupply wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I’ll bite. A very reductionist definition is “bigger contribution = bigger reward”.

In my experience it is very subjective and generally contextual what either side of that equation means. The term meritocracy has often been by people who have a very clear view on what contribution and reward mean and they typically assume a closed and fair system where everyone already agreed on the meaning of those terms and on the rules on how to evaluate those things on a case by case basis. To be honest I'm jus…

Under capitalism everyone decides what to reward, even the poorest people in first world countries make tons of decisions what to spend their money on, that is how we decide merit, if people decide to give you their money you have merit. We try to regulate so it doesn't get abusive but there will always be some holes, but that system is as close to an unbiased merit function we have gotten.

The other good merit function we have is one vote per person, that is how we elect national leaders, this doesn't have some of the abusive loopholes as the capitalist merit function, but instead it has other abusive properties which is why every modern country choose to do a mix of both.

Re: What ChatGPT reveals about the collapse of support for higher education

#62

Post by ogogmad »

layer8 wrote: post #58
Turing_Machine wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but that's an entirely different thing from having items from 2022-2023 in its training data . That part wouldn't be any different with a human. If you locked a person in a cave in 2021, and released him in 2023, he could know that it was 2023 (at least after you told him) without knowing (e.g.) who won the World Series in 2022.

The criticism wasn’t that ChatGPT doesn’t know stuff from 2022, it was that ChatGPT is stating that it can’t tell you because it hasn’t happened yet. I don’t know if this is because of boilerplate formulations about the cutoff date that aren’t true ChatGPT output, or rather because ChatGPT has a poor understanding of time, as examples shared in previous HN threads have demonstrated.

So you're suggesting that because it can tell the current date, it should have said "had not yet occurred" instead of "have not yet occurred".

That's kind of subtle.

Re: What ChatGPT reveals about the collapse of support for higher education

#63

Post by [deleted] »

platz wrote: post #44
bioemerl wrote: post #14

Chat GPT reveals that academia has fallen short of the trend as follows. " When you are growing and everyone trusts you, you can do no wrong, and your mistakes shrink into nothing on their own." " When you begin to shrink and your reputation sours, you can do no right, your wrongs balloon catastrophically and your rights slowly shrink into nothing like your wrongs used to" Academia I'm sure provides tons of stuff, bu…

> Even I don't trust anything coming out of any large institutions anymore Learn to differentiate between facts and editorials/opinions. Alternative media isn't very good at presenting basic facts correctly, something institutions still do well and can only spin so far. Alternative media outright lies about facts.

[deleted]

Re: What ChatGPT reveals about the collapse of support for higher education

#64

Post by layer8 »

ogogmad wrote: post #62
layer8 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The criticism wasn’t that ChatGPT doesn’t know stuff from 2022, it was that ChatGPT is stating that it can’t tell you because it hasn’t happened yet. I don’t know if this is because of boilerplate formulations about the cutoff date that aren’t true ChatGPT output, or rather because ChatGPT has a poor understanding of time, as examples shared in previous HN threads have demonstrated.

So you're suggesting that because it can tell the current date, it should have said " had not yet occurred" instead of " have not yet occurred". That's kind of subtle.

A more straightforward answer would have been “My training data only goes up until 2021, so I don’t know who is president in 2022.”

However, the answer could be more useful. When you actually ask it “Is Biden president?”, ChatGPT answers “As of my knowledge cutoff in 2021, Joe Biden is the president of the United States, after being inaugurated on January 20, 2021.” So why didn’t it give that information for the first question?

It is a valid criticism that ChatGPT is very inconsistent and often misleading in its representation of what information it is in principle able to provide.

Re: What ChatGPT reveals about the collapse of support for higher education

#65

Post by raincom »

skybrian wrote: post #53
raincom wrote: post #36

ChatGPT bullshits, because almost all humanities are occupied by bullshitters. Best example from this blog post itself: “It is difficult to say whether these events show that the humanities have been “infiltrated by bullshitters,” as this would depend on one’s definition of “bullshitters” and one’s perspective on the events in question. However, it is clear that these events sparked significant debate and discussion…

What do you mean by "definitions have become fetishes?" What are some examples? Noticing that most words are ambiguous isn't a bug. It's a commonplace observation that you can repair and move on from. There are a zillion online debates that get started because people interpret words differently (or even adversarially) and don't clarify. It's good to be able to avoid falling into that trap. In in interactive context,…

In legal contracts, definitions are not only necessary, but also protect both parties. That's why definitions are added in contracts.

There are definiendum (a term that needs to be defined) and definiens (that does the defining). Definiendum =df definiens

What do these definitions do? Replace a symbol (or a string) with a sentence or set of sentences. How do these help settle disputes?

Let us imagine a scenario: Some Y says that there are no native religions in Africa, except Christianity, Islam and Judaism, because Y defends this based on his theory of religion. Another guy say: Ah, whether native religions exist in Africa depends on your definition of 'religion'. In that case, Y will say: 'religion' =df what does not exist in Africa. Now one can see all absurdities about definitions. One needs a theory about what religion is (in the world) to settle whether native religions exist in Africa/India. Instead of coming up with theories with testable consequences, one engages in definitional quibbles and plausibility arguments.

Now look at plausibility arguments. If someone can argue for P, others can equally argue for ~P (not P). How to pick between P and ~P? Based on people's voting? This is another reason to have theories (as we see in Natural sciences). Now you can see journalists, professors who assign students to write arguments, and students trained by such professors.

Re: What ChatGPT reveals about the collapse of support for higher education

#66

Post by ohCh6zos »

dgb23 wrote: post #60
limitedsupply wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I’ll bite. A very reductionist definition is “bigger contribution = bigger reward”.

In my experience it is very subjective and generally contextual what either side of that equation means. The term meritocracy has often been by people who have a very clear view on what contribution and reward mean and they typically assume a closed and fair system where everyone already agreed on the meaning of those terms and on the rules on how to evaluate those things on a case by case basis. To be honest I'm jus…

I don't beleive people assume a closed and fair system, but instead find the fairness of the system irrelevant.

Re: What ChatGPT reveals about the collapse of support for higher education

#67

Post by somenameforme »

platz wrote: post #44
bioemerl wrote: post #14

Chat GPT reveals that academia has fallen short of the trend as follows. " When you are growing and everyone trusts you, you can do no wrong, and your mistakes shrink into nothing on their own." " When you begin to shrink and your reputation sours, you can do no right, your wrongs balloon catastrophically and your rights slowly shrink into nothing like your wrongs used to" Academia I'm sure provides tons of stuff, bu…

> Even I don't trust anything coming out of any large institutions anymore Learn to differentiate between facts and editorials/opinions. Alternative media isn't very good at presenting basic facts correctly, something institutions still do well and can only spin so far. Alternative media outright lies about facts.

And what is your take on Brian Sicknick [1]? He's the officer who died following the January 6th riots. [1] All big media sites ran an identical story. He was not only killed, but he was bludgeoned to death, in the head, by a rioter wielding a fire hydrant. Quite the visceral and disturbing imagery. The problem is that it was not true, at all. Not only was he not killed by rioters - the medical examiner would later testify that he was completely physically unharmed as a consequence of the riots. He didn't even die on January 6th, and was texting his brother that evening. He died the next day following a series of strokes, from a preexisting clot in his brain.

Any media outlet which did even the bare minimum of research would have known it was a lie: contact the brother, the hospital, the coroner's office (seeking only a date confirmation), let alone actually having done any real investigation whatsoever into the claims. But they didn't. Politicians, including the president (who all would have had 100% certainty that he was not killed) then continued to actively lie to the public and exploit his death for political gain, even including having a formal ceremony at the Capital Rotunda that's been traditionally reserved for individuals such as Rosa Parks and RBG.

When it was finally revealed to be a lie, where was the reckoning? An exploited media anxious to discover how and why they were misled, and hold those responsible accountable? For that matter what of holding the politicians accountable for their own behavior? They were actively and maliciously lying and propagandizing a man's death on a national level.

Instead, the media tried to shift the story to the strokes being caused by pepper spray - which was also another completely fabricated lie with no basis in reality. Then when the chief medical examiner refused to play ball, they just buried the story. There was 0 interest in the truth from the beginning to end. And here you are saying the big media is good at presenting basic facts and can only spin so far. This is not a swipe at you, but rather emphasizing how they're able to really get away with this.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Brian_Sicknick

Re: What ChatGPT reveals about the collapse of support for higher education

#68

Post by tppiotrowski »

platz wrote: post #44
bioemerl wrote: post #14

Chat GPT reveals that academia has fallen short of the trend as follows. " When you are growing and everyone trusts you, you can do no wrong, and your mistakes shrink into nothing on their own." " When you begin to shrink and your reputation sours, you can do no right, your wrongs balloon catastrophically and your rights slowly shrink into nothing like your wrongs used to" Academia I'm sure provides tons of stuff, bu…

> Even I don't trust anything coming out of any large institutions anymore Learn to differentiate between facts and editorials/opinions. Alternative media isn't very good at presenting basic facts correctly, something institutions still do well and can only spin so far. Alternative media outright lies about facts.

> I keep scrolling until I find someone showing me the raw event with no commentary.

Parent said they look for source material, not alternative media

Re: What ChatGPT reveals about the collapse of support for higher education

#69

Post by tppiotrowski »

bioemerl wrote: post #14

Chat GPT reveals that academia has fallen short of the trend as follows. " When you are growing and everyone trusts you, you can do no wrong, and your mistakes shrink into nothing on their own." " When you begin to shrink and your reputation sours, you can do no right, your wrongs balloon catastrophically and your rights slowly shrink into nothing like your wrongs used to" Academia I'm sure provides tons of stuff, bu…

I think traditional media manipulates by selectively omitting context. Let's say a police officer died of a heart attack during January 6th, it would be presented as "capital police officer dies during the riots". While technically true, different people would interpret this as murder or accident.

Journalists argue that too much context makes for grueling reading but it's too powerful of a tool to wield selectively.

Re: What ChatGPT reveals about the collapse of support for higher education

#70

Post by Shorel »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #27

Men are mass opting out of universities. Universities are seeing record low enrollment and it's only going to get worse. https://www.wsj.com/articles/college-university-fall-higher-... I predict the death of the university in our life times.

That's only in that particular country. In the rest of the world, it just keeps going on.
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