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Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

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Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#101

Post by wpietri »

sitkack wrote: post #98
wpietri wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those aren't decades-old "prognostications". They are things that happened. Could it be different this time? Maybe! But if you want to say that it will , then you have to make the argument. Or maybe you can get ChatGPT to do it for you?

Have you tried coding with ChatGPT? It works now. You can use it now to architect a system AND produce working code.

Oh? Then it should be easy for you to point me to an example of working system of real-world complexity built this way, yes?

I'm especially interested to see how the system gets improved over time as users try it out, lessons are learned, needs change, etc, etc.

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#102

Post by LeanderK »

bitwize wrote: post #67
LeanderK wrote: post #29

I don't think the view that just because we can automate the creation of a simple essay makes writing essays for students obsolete. It's not what Chomsky said but I've heard the argument a lot in the context. We are not requiring it because everyone is writing essays all the time but because it's an important, basic skill. We can automate many math exercises, but it's still important to let students do it on their ow…

> I don't think the view that just because we can automate the creation of a simple essay makes writing essays for students obsolete. It's not what Chomsky said but I've heard the argument a lot in the context. We are not requiring it because everyone is writing essays all the time but because it's an important, basic skill. I think there's something to be said for the view that ChatGPT makes the sort of simplistic,…

Well, maybe some adjustment is needed. The calculator changed the curriculum but the creation of wolfram alpha did not. We can maybe revise how we do it but essays are still important I think. They also lie at the heart of so many university degrees.

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#103

Post by bitwize »

LeanderK wrote: post #102
bitwize wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think the view that just because we can automate the creation of a simple essay makes writing essays for students obsolete. It's not what Chomsky said but I've heard the argument a lot in the context. We are not requiring it because everyone is writing essays all the time but because it's an important, basic skill. I think there's something to be said for the view that ChatGPT makes the sort of simplistic,…

Well, maybe some adjustment is needed. The calculator changed the curriculum but the creation of wolfram alpha did not. We can maybe revise how we do it but essays are still important I think. They also lie at the heart of so many university degrees.

I think that essays are great and a necessary part of education. But the way we've taught them for decades has to go.

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#104

Post by sitkack »

wpietri wrote: post #101
sitkack wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried coding with ChatGPT? It works now. You can use it now to architect a system AND produce working code.

Oh? Then it should be easy for you to point me to an example of working system of real-world complexity built this way, yes? I'm especially interested to see how the system gets improved over time as users try it out, lessons are learned, needs change, etc, etc.

Please stop.

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#105

Post by thundergolfer »

wpietri wrote: post #89
thundergolfer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're advocating a system of education, thinking, and work that is exemplified by 'Software Architecture Astronauts', people who have not recently or ever contended with the details, the nuts and bolts, of actual software development and maintenance. To be honest, the idea that you can produce valuable intellectual work by outsourcing the details is absurd. This would have seen me absolutely fail my c…

Great points! But I want to quibble with this a bit. > To be honest, the idea that you can produce valuable intellectual work by outsourcing the details is absurd. It is absurd. But it's also very common! There are an awful lot of people who have done very well not by understanding anything, but by posturing and performing. E.g., take the ghostwritten book. The books of many politicians from all parties could generou…

Totally endorse the quibble. I think ChatGPT will be most often deployed in areas that are tied to a lot of economic value but are also full of bullshitters. Ghostwriting political memoirs is a good example, but its a niche, SEO spam is that big bucks at the moment.

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#106

Post by thundergolfer »

lordnacho wrote: post #92
thundergolfer wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, it seems like you're advocating ChatGPT as an information retreival tool, which seems perfectly acceptable. Looking up exact dates and names is tedious. By "filling in the details" I thought you were referring more generally to the essay writing process, where the structure of an essay is its skeleton and the "details" are the just as essential pieces of argumentation and evidence. If you write a sociology, hi…

Is that bait? Adam Smith IIRC. Hume did Treatise on Human Nature.

Not bait, but it could have been! I switched my example halfway through because I couldn't think of a 2nd Hume book, but didn't properly edit.

Edit: Here's the first paragraph of what ChatGPT responds to my incorrect request for that synthesis argument. Thankfully we had you reply and not ChatGPT:

> David Hume's "The Wealth of Nations" and "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" are two of his most famous works that address important aspects of economics and ethics, respectively. While these two works seem to address separate topics, they are related and complement each other in many ways. ...

ChatGPT Prompt: produce a synthesis argument of Hume's The Wealth of Nations and Theory of Moral Sentiments

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#107

Post by wpietri »

sitkack wrote: post #104
wpietri wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh? Then it should be easy for you to point me to an example of working system of real-world complexity built this way, yes? I'm especially interested to see how the system gets improved over time as users try it out, lessons are learned, needs change, etc, etc.

Please stop.

Stop asking you for you to back up your questionable claims? Now that you've stopped making them, sure, I'm glad to.

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#108

Post by meroes »

sitkack wrote: post #59
meroes wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The model for mathematics is something like a “good book” of once-entered, unchanging posable questions and theorems. More may be added, but once added there is a sense of permanent definitiveness and relevance. For your example and beyond-mathematics calculator analogy, maybe the dates of historical events are equally definitive, but I don’t see much beyond that being so. Science goes through transformations. Either…

> Your expanded “calculator” paradigm seems unfounded. Please explain. GPT makes a utility out something that previously was not. The GP didn't say it was exact.

They didn't say exact. Exact isn't the concept I'm concerned about.

There is something unique about mathematics in that its answers never change. And that static structure can be tapped into with calculators. A "calculator" outside this domain reeks of potential danger to me. Asking a question to some other field whose answers are open to revision doesn't give one transparent access to timeless knowledge. There is always going to be a caveat that the answers given by GPT are clouded by time and circumstance. You can't just copy the answers GPT gives you and call that knowledge, like calculator results do allow.

I would hope GPT knowledge comes with the understanding that GPT v.XX, exposed to Y circumstances, produced Z results. We don't do that for calculators.

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#109

Post by Spooky23 »

Version467 wrote: post #75
Spooky23 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did adoption of calculators lead to less learning of arithmetic. Certainly. Was that a bad thing? I honestly don't know. IMO it was bad for individuals, good for society. People are innumerate and that is exploited by people selling products and services.

I don't understand how you get from here: > People are innumerate and that is exploited by people selling products and services. to here: > good for society Did I misunderstand your argument?

Maybe economy is a better word? In the short term, any ding dong punching into a calculator or Excel can do something productive cheaper than someone who knows what they are doing.

An elderly relative was manager in a cash room at a regional bank. In the 70s… they had a huge cash room, that would accommodate 25’ trucks. When she started they were still doing manual counts, and eventually moved to tabulating machines. Each generation of tech eliminates a chunk of workforce. Instead of 5,000 clerks, that bank has 50 software engineers performing the same functions with a couple of dozen clerical staff.

Re: Noam Chomsky on ChatGPT: High-Tech Plagiarism, Way of Avoiding Learning

#110

Post by thundergolfer »

ddren wrote: post #96
thundergolfer wrote: post #47

This thread is already full of people throwing in their cheap takes by reading the headline or not even that. Listen to his answers. He's not making controversial claims, excepting the one that LLMs teach us nothing about language. He says: - ChatGPT makes it easier to cheat. This is obviously true. - ChatGPT is a method of avoiding learning. In the context of the interview he's referring to its use not as an informa…

ChatGPT makes it easier to cheat, but cheating in that way was always an option, as long as you had enough money to pay someone else to do it for you. So in that sense, all that ChatGPT does is expose the flaws in the system by making this form of cheating available to everybody. I have to wonder why only now this is considered a serious problem that undermines education, but it was mostly ignored when the option was…

Yes, there were always rich kids that were able to cheat, using college just for the status and credentialism, and there still are. What Chomsky is interested in, and what we should be interested in, is how we get rich kids like J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Oppenheimer didn't need to become educated in and world class at physics, be he did it anyway, and it's probably the lack of need which increased his interest and ability.

I think your separation idea is interesting. At first blush, it seems a good move to keep examination as far away from education as possible, as they're very different things.

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