41–50 of 77 posts
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They need to learn the material at first . Then, AI is just a tool and you lose if you don’t use it.
The nice thing about OpenAI is that they are so open about their technology. They even have programs that teach students how to build their own LLMs so they never become dependent on something they cannot control.
AI is just another tool. A pretty good one. And there is a skill to using it efficiently. If you ask it dumb questions, you will get dumb answers. Garbage in, garbage out. I am a software developer and I hire devs as well. If somebody is ignorant of AI or refuses to use it, that is hard pass for me. It is not all that different from an accountant not wanting to use computers. Sure, you could still do some work. But,…
Exactly. I expect people to know, be proficient with, and use all relevant tools available to them. Including AI; but not just AI. There are a lot of people trying to argue why they don't want/need to use certain tools. A job interview would be the wrong place to have that argument. A good, open interview question these days would be asking candidates how they are using AI in their work and what challenges they are f…
I mean we know how - and why - to write documentation. We have all basic skills and just use LLMs to automate that for us. These skills, however, were won through endless manual labour, not by reading about it. We practiced until we could do it with our eyes closed.
Where will the next generation come from .. ? I appreciate most companies don't have to worry about this, but if I were the head of a very large multi-generational enterprise I would worry about the future of knowledge workers. AGI better pan out or we are all fucked.
Maybe employers are just believing the hype from companies like OpenAI. The student responses seemed spot on to me. They need to learn the material and how to do their job, not chat with a bot.
"They need to learn the material and how to do their job, not muck around with computers." "They need to learn the material and to do their job, not search the Internet."
Maybe employers are just believing the hype from companies like OpenAI. The student responses seemed spot on to me. They need to learn the material and how to do their job, not chat with a bot.
Does anybody think that the state of AI is sufficiently stable that things taught to high school students will be valid by the time they enter the workforce?
Is there even anything generalizable to teach? The big pitch for AI is that it's supposed to be able to understand natural language. Then there's a long tail of specific hacks that you insert into prompts to get particular results. Any of which could change tomorrow. It's like teaching SEO in school.
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There’s a high possibility that AI will have exactly the opposite effect on work productivity for young people, at least for this generation, because technology in companies around the world lags years or even decades behind for simple economic reasons. In a similar way, the overuse of simplified touchscreen-based devices makes them unprepared for working with computers and other “old tech” permeating the modern offi…
I suspect the average tech skill is about the same as in earlier generations. It's just that for older folks amount of time spent with computing devices was a decent proxy for tech skills. That correlation has probably broken down.
You need to spend time with computers to learn how to use them so if average PC usage drops I'd expect the average skill to drop as well.
They recently got a larger mid-term assignment which involves implementing some well-known, basic data structures, and the standard functionality associated with them.
In one of the problems, they were given skeleton code to a bit more complex functionality - and their task is to explicitly use LLM of their choice to fill in the code, and test if the code works, using a set of tests.
I think the class in general has been updated to assume that students are using LLMs more and more, as the problem sets this year are longer and more complex, compared to those of past years (which were made available to all current students).
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"They need to learn the material and how to do their job, not muck around with computers." "They need to learn the material and to do their job, not search the Internet."
Ah, yes, what a good idea, classes in how to search the internet. If I’d had those when I was in school, I would now be an expert user of AskJeeves. What a missed opportunity.
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> (I already know some people who got in trouble for using AI to write important emails and were then threatened with lawsuits for language in those emails that they themselves, of course, did not read). Of course, the solution to that is to have an AI that scans your email for problematic language.
Its not that the language was "problematical," its just that the contents were more sensitive then I think they realized, and so they were held to account for the specificities of the language they used.
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240222-air-canada-chatb...
You are potentially liable for the contents of your work emails. This includes if you put a stupid disclaimer at the bottom. People have gone to jail over the contents of chat. It's one thing to take notes on a criminal conspiracy and another thing to have the AI make one up and drop you in it because you didn't read the email it sent.
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They need to learn the material at first . Then, AI is just a tool and you lose if you don’t use it.
No, they need to learn the material at first , and then, if it is beneficial for the situation, they need to learn the shortcomings and pitfalls of AI (both generically and specifically to their use case) before using it. You're right in that AI is a tool that might be necessary to use, but just like with a heavy industry machine tool that can chop your arm off if you use it wrong, there need to be operator training…
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Ah, yes, what a good idea, classes in how to search the internet. If I’d had those when I was in school, I would now be an expert user of AskJeeves. What a missed opportunity.
There is no need to be snide and dismissive. It is absolutely necessary to learn how to find, disseminate and evaluate information. If the tool of choice is a book index,AskJeeves, Google or ChatGPT - all of these require specific knowledge to get the most out of them. Where do you acquire that knowledge?
Especially when the tools are so liable to change at zero notice. It's not the responsibility of the public education system to do product training for megacorps.
(People who disagree with this: let's see your syllabus for AI 101 with the guarantee that all its contents will still be valid in 5 years time?)