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"AI", students, and epistemic crisis

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Re: "AI", students, and epistemic crisis

#71

Post by posix86 »

sieste wrote: post #23

Like probably many people here I still remember having to find facts in books in libraries, before the internet made this skill mostly redundant. Then, as a student I remember having to put together facts from various (internet) sources into a coherent narrative. Now chatbots can just generate text and that skill seems less valuable. I use both the internet and GenAI extensively now. But I feel that having gone throu…

You're probably at an advantage now, but I think the effort/reward hardly pays out for the newer generation. They'll learn how to deal with this with less effort & time.

Remember that the new generation doesn't just have different tools; they're also much less experienced & mature, just like we were.You can only really compare yourself to them in the future where they're at the place you're at now.

Re: "AI", students, and epistemic crisis

#72

Post by algorias »

par1970 wrote: post #21
lionkor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also undermines the way schools work to teach kids. In order to not have to explain everything, almost all lessons are mostly teaching you some axioms, even if they really are disputed, or have caveats, etc. Good teachers make clear where there is an axiom, and where something is just being simplified or assumed for the sake of saving time. I am a product of the German school system, I'd say I wasn't indoctrinated…

> In order to not have to explain everything, almost all lessons are mostly teaching you some axioms, even if they really are disputed, or have caveats, etc. Good teachers make clear where there is an axiom, and where something is just being simplified or assumed for the sake of saving time. What exactly do you mean by the word “axiom” here?

Something assumed to be true without proof.

Think of it as one layer of abstraction above the model under discussion. Like a hyperparameter. In later years, students get taught the same topics again, with the hyperparameter tuned to be more realistic.

Re: "AI", students, and epistemic crisis

#73

Post by pnut »

adammarples wrote: post #3

"I am one person trying to work against a campaign of misinformation so vast that it fucking terrifies me. This kid is being set up for a life lived entirely inside the hall of mirrors." This is a little hyperbolic and instead maybe the kid can learn that chatgpt.com is not a reliable source. It even says at the bottom of the page "chat gpt can make mistakes". Lots of things are not reliable sources. Wikipedia is not…

Buddhist philosophy suggests this entire reality is a hall of mirrors.

Re: "AI", students, and epistemic crisis

#74

Post by tomhoward »

deadbabe wrote: post #22

I really don’t see any other solution to this kind of problem except for one: LLMs must become perfect, and never be wrong. Relying on kids to do cross referencing and deeper fact checks into everything they ask an LLM is just not going to happen at scale.

Maybe it’s the opposite; kids need to learn that LLM’s can bullshit just like every other person and institution can bullshit, and the most important skill they can have is verification of information, no matter where it’s coming from.

Re: "AI", students, and epistemic crisis

#75

Post by watwut »

sieste wrote: post #23

Like probably many people here I still remember having to find facts in books in libraries, before the internet made this skill mostly redundant. Then, as a student I remember having to put together facts from various (internet) sources into a coherent narrative. Now chatbots can just generate text and that skill seems less valuable. I use both the internet and GenAI extensively now. But I feel that having gone throu…

I think that chatbots will lead to less information available, not more. Because they make writing information more useless and demotivating. So what we are looking toward is less written information overall available.

And when chatbots don't know, they lie.

Kids will learn the hard way. Possibly harder then we did.

Re: "AI", students, and epistemic crisis

#76

Post by watwut »

Kiro wrote: post #39

Am I the only one who almost never experience any hallucinations when talking to ChatGPT? I have to really push it into a corner with trick questions and conflicting instructions about obscure topics in order to trigger hallucinations. That it would just come up with random false facts about something as common and "basic" as the history of the Greek language sounds like a made-up issue.

I don't need corner. I asked him for valid IISExpress config file.

Chatbots are great systetising in areas where there is a strong open source like culture - a lot of people writing tutorials and on stack overflow. The moment you move into area that is not popular to write about, they start making stuff up.

And it sux massively. I would much rather seen "I don't know" then what ChatGPT produces currently.

Re: "AI", students, and epistemic crisis

#77

Post by ballenf »

sieste wrote: post #23

Like probably many people here I still remember having to find facts in books in libraries, before the internet made this skill mostly redundant. Then, as a student I remember having to put together facts from various (internet) sources into a coherent narrative. Now chatbots can just generate text and that skill seems less valuable. I use both the internet and GenAI extensively now. But I feel that having gone throu…

Makes me wonder how someone would have found the answers before the printing press. Write to or visit the most knowledgeable person you could get an introduction to or who would answer you? Then go to their contacts or recommendations? Then draw a conclusion from all the responses?

And even this scenario assumes a working postal system, availability of paper and pen. But if you didn't have those, you may not have heard of Greek to even ask the question.

Re: "AI", students, and epistemic crisis

#78

Post by watwut »

huimang wrote: post #27

I feel like this is a bit overblown. Growing up we heard, ad nauseam, that "wikipedia is not a reliable source". People just need to state the same thing about LLMs- they aren't reliable, but can potentially point you to primary sources that -are- reliable. Once the shininess of the new toy wears off, people will adjust.

Wikipedia is massively more reliable then ChatGPT.

Re: "AI", students, and epistemic crisis

#79

Post by allsummer »

This is a problem for this particular teacher (who sees their students surpassing them in understanding and using AI), but of course it is projected to be a problem for the student.

No student is ever hurt by the introduction of a more advanced knowledge system. We heard similar laments decades ago, with: Students just believe the first 10 search results of Google. Those students are now the teachers of today, starting at the search bar.

I'd go so far as saying (if version other than 3.5 was used) that ChatGPT was correct and has far more linguistics knowledge than this teacher ever will. "Greek is actually a combination of four other languages" is not an answer that ChatGPT will ever give, but something a teacher makes up to claim Ch*tGPT is a Nonsense Machine.

ChatGPT: Greek has evolved in stages from Mycenaean Greek (Linear B script) through Classical Greek, Hellenistic (Koine) Greek, Byzantine Greek, and Modern Greek. It has been influenced by ancient Near Eastern languages, Latin, Turkish, Italian, and French.

If there really is an epistemic crisis, then it already existed and ChatGPT merely reflects it, not caused or contributed to it.

Re: "AI", students, and epistemic crisis

#80

Post by relaxing »

xg15 wrote: post #67

I would have thought this problem was easy to solve: "Yes, look it up, but remember your source, there is a lot of bullshit on the internet. Especially don't trust AI tools, we know those often return nonsense information." (Actually, didn't ChatGPT have a disclaimer right next to the prompt box that warns against incorrect answers?) So I'm more surprised (and scared) that students don't just use LLMs for sourcing bu…

Are these tools being promoted and sold as fallible implements? Or are they being hyped as super-human intelligence? Which takeaway is an impressionable child going to latch onto? One who wasn’t in on the last 1.5 years of discourse?
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