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My little sister's use of ChatGPT for homework is heartbreaking

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Re: My little sister's use of ChatGPT for homework is heartbreaking

#121

Post by fnimick »

segasaturn wrote: post #60
moduspwnens14 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My daughter is only 1 and a half years old now, but my concern is more that she'll be implicitly competing with classmates that are using tools like this, whether we allow her to use them or not.

I don't understand this sentiment, even though it is common among Americans. Why is education seen as a competition between students, even in the younger grades? I've even heard stories of parents of young children fighting with each other over their children's grades.

Grades determine what college you go to, which determines the connections you make, which determines the trajectory of your entire life.

Re: My little sister's use of ChatGPT for homework is heartbreaking

#122

Post by pdonis »

tines wrote: post #29
pdonis wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A calculator can be trusted to give you the right answer if you punch in the numbers correctly. An LLM cannot. That's because a calculator is designed to give the right answer. An LLM is not. It's only designed to produce text that seems plausible based on the prompt. "Plausible" is not the same as "trustworthy".

I don’t think things would be different if the LLM gave answers that were 100% reliable and correct, it would still be sad that the kid is having someone else do their homework for them with no effort on their part. What you say is true but irrelevant. The real difference is that calculation isn’t the important part of math above a certain level.

I don't think what I said is irrelevant. A calculator is a reliable tool. When used properly it can be helpful. The same would apply to more sophisticated tools that are available now with computers to help with math, such as tools that can quickly graph equations, or show the results of complex numerical simulations. There is certainly an argument for not allowing the use of such tools in certain learning environments, but if the tools are reliable, there will come a point where their usefulness outweighs their disadvantages.

An LLM is not a reliable tool, and that is a huge difference. It's not just that the students are asking "someone else" to do their homework for them. It's that they're being lied to by the proponents of LLMs, who are telling them the answers the LLM gives them are reliable, when they're not. Nobody made claims about what calculators can do that weren't justified by their actual design.

Re: My little sister's use of ChatGPT for homework is heartbreaking

#123

Post by MVissers »

itishappy wrote: post #89
segasaturn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this sentiment, even though it is common among Americans. Why is education seen as a competition between students, even in the younger grades? I've even heard stories of parents of young children fighting with each other over their children's grades.

Why wouldn't it be? Education's job is to prepare students for life in the real world, and life in the real world is often a competition with your peers. When I was in grade school (admittedly close to 20 years ago) we had accelerated and slowed tracks for students starting in 5th grade.

I mean, they should probably prepare people with knowledge of taxes and investing then.

The competition is very obvious in societies with a lot of wealth disparity. In Europe there tends to be less disparity and less competition.

US, China, India, UK, etc, much more disparity so it’s much more important for kids to be ‘top of the field’.

Re: My little sister's use of ChatGPT for homework is heartbreaking

#124

Post by wvenable »

jayrot wrote: post #107
wvenable wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even for the parents who know it's extremely difficult to really know if you're doing the right or wrong thing. And it's constant, you have to be eternally vigilant. My son brute-forced the downtime pin on his iPhone -- it took 6 months but he did it.

I truly am hesitant to ever criticize someone else's parenting style since if I've learned anything, it's that kids personalities can be very different and circumstances are always more complicated than you might think. That said, I hear stories like yours (from friends) and it always baffles me because that's just now how our family operates. I have a downtime pin on devices for the same reason I lock the door to my…

He absolutely got into trouble for breaking past the downtime pin. Although, not in that much trouble because I was honestly a little impressed.

Punishment and technological locks are both tools in the toolkit.

Ultimately you want your children to find the right balance with technology and that's difficult because most parents struggle with that balance. The world has moved very quickly and it is very hard to keep up. My kids are 12 years apart in age and they couldn't have had more different childhoods -- that's how quickly things have changed. Less than a generation.

Re: My little sister's use of ChatGPT for homework is heartbreaking

#125

Post by falcor84 »

mherrmann wrote: post #66

Let's dig deeper. Level 0: this is bad. Level -1: The teaching methods need to change. Level -2: It's a glimpse into all of our future, not just children. Level -3: Who controls the AI controls the world.

And that of course is a reason to repost this wonderful exchange in "A Clash of Kings":

> In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. ‘Do it,’ says the king, ‘for I am your lawful ruler.’ ‘Do it,’ says the priest, ‘for I command you in the names of the gods.’ ‘Do it,’ says the rich man, ‘and all this gold shall be yours.’ So tell me—who lives and who dies?

> "The king, the priest, the rich man — who lives and who dies? Who will the swordsman obey? It's a riddle without an answer, or rather, too many answers. All depends on the man with the sword.

> "And yet he is no one," Varys said. "He has neither crown nor gold nor favor of the gods, only a piece of pointed steel."

> "That piece of steel is the power of life and death."

> "Just so … yet if it is the swordsmen who rule us in truth, why do we pretend our kings hold the power? Why should a strong man with a sword ever obey a child king like Joffrey, or a wine-sodden oaf like his father?"

> "Because these child kings and drunken oafs can call other strong men, with other swords."

> "Then these other swordsmen have the true power. Or do they? Whence came their swords? Why do they obey?" Varys smiled.

EDIT: Seeing no reactions yet, I just wanted to explain that the way I see this coming battle on controlling the AI that controls the world is that we have the governments, the billionaires and the ethicists saying what should be done, and us software professionals as the sellswords with our fingers on the literal trigger.

Re: My little sister's use of ChatGPT for homework is heartbreaking

#126

Post by MichaelZuo »

fnimick wrote: post #121
segasaturn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this sentiment, even though it is common among Americans. Why is education seen as a competition between students, even in the younger grades? I've even heard stories of parents of young children fighting with each other over their children's grades.

Grades determine what college you go to, which determines the connections you make, which determines the trajectory of your entire life.

This never made sense to me,

Unless the child is a literal genius or very charismatic, wouldn’t they almost certainly have worse prospects after graduating in the 10th to 30th percentile of their class at Harvard than from the 80th to 90th percentile of their class at Boston U?

(Assuming they could even manage to squeak into Harvard in the first placd)

Re: My little sister's use of ChatGPT for homework is heartbreaking

#128

Post by engineer_22 »

miltonlost wrote: post #55
engineer_22 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play the devils advocate, on some calculators 9+3x2=24

That's not playing devil's advocate. That's you not understanding how the calculator was programmed. A graphing calculator in which you can put (9+3x2) before pressing enter is different than a adding calculator in which you can only do sequential binary operations (9+3, enter, x2, enter). The calculator is programmed exactly to do as it was. Both calculators are correct in their programming. It's you who mistyped wh…

my point exactly

Re: My little sister's use of ChatGPT for homework is heartbreaking

#129

Post by cma »

moduspwnens14 wrote: post #77
segasaturn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this sentiment, even though it is common among Americans. Why is education seen as a competition between students, even in the younger grades? I've even heard stories of parents of young children fighting with each other over their children's grades.

That seems to be a common theme in the responses to me here. The teachers set the course material and grading standards at least partially on how well the students are performing. Maybe not for a given class or year, but certainly over time. Scholarships are competitive. Slots in higher level courses are competitive, and often (at least partially) based on grades. Can you imagine that the coursework and education ove…

Why have grades like this that then still move everyone on to the next class. Don't move on until you've mastered the prerequisite. Why have a track of people making C's moving on from Algebra I to algebra II with the same people making A's. Get to college earlier by mastering, rather than a weird compounding competition that kicks off in middleschool.

Something like that was advocated by the Khan academy guy, but I'm not sure if he worked out a full replacement system. There are some things in the current system like honors classes or retaking the classes for people who got an F, but why have the F ruin their chance at college if they later master it and get an A? If they always lag but eventually get there, I guess an argument is college would be too expensive if it took them a long time to get through it.

Re: My little sister's use of ChatGPT for homework is heartbreaking

#130

Post by wvenable »

moduspwnens14 wrote: post #77
segasaturn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this sentiment, even though it is common among Americans. Why is education seen as a competition between students, even in the younger grades? I've even heard stories of parents of young children fighting with each other over their children's grades.

That seems to be a common theme in the responses to me here. The teachers set the course material and grading standards at least partially on how well the students are performing. Maybe not for a given class or year, but certainly over time. Scholarships are competitive. Slots in higher level courses are competitive, and often (at least partially) based on grades. Can you imagine that the coursework and education ove…

Teachers aren't dumb here; they know what's going on. And they're actively working to figure out how best to navigate this situation. They're not looking to grade how well ChatGPT does in their course.
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