Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

old.reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 523 posts

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

#401

Post by satvikpendem »

TZubiri wrote: post #399
satvikpendem wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChatGPT is free without the need for a credit card. Age restrictions don't actually stop kids from making accounts.

"The shit version of chatgpt is free" Fixed that for you. And it will get shittier as investment dries up and the pressure to monetize increases.

I mean, that's just shifting goal posts at this point; no one said anything about only using the free version. And anyway, Altman said they're losing money on the paid versions too, so I expect OpenAI to go under sometime in the next few years. They'll be like Xerox or Kodak, pioneering a novel innovation but ultimately failing to other bigger companies.

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

#402

Post by nullc »

jjice wrote: post #232
dcchambers wrote: post #219

I think one thing few are willing to admit is that a large blame for this can be placed on disinterested parents. Parents that believe it is solely the school/teacher's job to educate their child. When kids are at home, parents should be involved in the learning process. You don't have to be a helicopter and monitor everything, but you should take interest in the work your child is doing. If you check in at least onc…

> Parents that believe it is solely the school/teacher's job to educate their child. My sister works with kids on their speech at a school and she's said that it's _bad_ how many children can't read or tell you what letter their first name starts with. She says that the teachers are getting flack at parent-teacher meetings because of this, but those are things that their parents teach them! I thought the "kids are il…

Depends on where you are. Some places have adopted fad curriculum for reading that results in illiteracy. https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/

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

#403

Post by TZubiri »

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.

>Who controls the AI controls the world.

Is this any different than the previous tech booms (or any industrial revolution for that matter). The US developed and exported almost all of the consumer (Google, Microsoft, Facebook) and infrastructural software (IP, Verisign, Linux).

The US domination through software is so normalized that the limit of these imports by highly sovereign countries are seen as dangerous or in violation of human rights in the 'western' internet.(China,Russia)

Hard to see how AI will be massively different than the history of Software in general in terms of geopolitical power.

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

#404

Post by astura »

mightyham wrote: post #94
Peacefulz wrote: post #3

I'm not trying to justify, or infer here, but I read recently that around 20% of American adults are functionally illiterate. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179/index.asp I wonder how LLMs are going to affect these metrics.

In the context of discussing the American education system, the more relevant figure is the number of native born functionally illiterate adults which, according to that source, is roughly 14%.

Almost 30 years ago, at my first job, a coworker got mad at someone and broke a broom. He was trying to write a letter to apologize and he couldn't. Couldn't meaning he was really trying but he didn't have the writing skills to write "I'm sorry that I broke a broom." The rest of the employees helped him.

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

#405

Post by TZubiri »

Terr_ wrote: post #350
falcor84 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That analogy rests on some precarious assumptions, like: 1. That the "AI" being bandied about (read: LLMs) really is able to "kill" the other blocs. 2. That such an action will be safe from retaliation. 3. That software engineers actually control/own enough of everything to pull that "trigger" unilaterally.

> 3. That software engineers actually control/own enough of everything to pull that "trigger" unilaterally.

Either you misunderstand the quote, or you haven't read the book or watched the series.

George Martin's central motif of what power really is doesn't have a definite answer, several characters propose different theories, in this case Varys poses more of a question than an answer.

You might say that the AI holds the power, you might say the Engineers hold the power, you might say the congressmen that regulate it hold the power, you might say the citizens who vote the congressmen have the power, you might say the president by control of the military holds the power, the users, god, chance, the smart, the capitalists, the shareholders, etc...

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

#407

Post by TZubiri »

mmooss wrote: post #192
Zak wrote: post #172

When I was in elementary school, my teachers told me it was very important to memorize multiplication tables because I wouldn't always have a calculator in my pocket. We know how that turned out. I asked an LLM the first example question (convert 3 minutes to seconds), and it provided not just the answer, but that there are 60 seconds per minutes, so that's 3 * 60 = 180. I don't think an 11 year old is harmed by that…

> When I was in elementary school, my teachers told me it was very important to memorize multiplication tables because I wouldn't always have a calculator in my pocket. We know how that turned out. I find knowing the multiplication tables to be essential. It consumes too much time and distraction to pull out a computing device for everything. I assume you don't use your phone for simple addition either.

I often find these claims sad

"I told Mrs. C fractions were useless and I never needed them, in your face Mrs. C"

The thing about knowledge is that you only know when it was useful if you know it, you will never know when you miss it.

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

#408

Post by ndriscoll »

moduspwnens14 wrote: post #15
clejack wrote: post #12

There's some grim humor in the fact that the poster reflects on his sister's use of chatgpt, and just ends on that point. I have to wonder if he decided to talk to her or his parents about the situation. I didn't see anything in the post to suggest it, just a "this next generation is cooked." Who cooked them is the question? Children won't raise themselves generally.

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.

Funny, I'm worried about classmates not being good enough for my girls. I'm worried that other kids will normalize bad ideas/behaviors growing up, and some day they'll end up in a dating scene that looks like today's, alone, or with a loser. I'd love to have them grow up into a world of strong, competent, conscientious, and honest peers.

So this kind of development adds to my pile of worries about their future, but for exactly the opposite reason.

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

#409

Post by TZubiri »

Zak wrote: post #172

When I was in elementary school, my teachers told me it was very important to memorize multiplication tables because I wouldn't always have a calculator in my pocket. We know how that turned out. I asked an LLM the first example question (convert 3 minutes to seconds), and it provided not just the answer, but that there are 60 seconds per minutes, so that's 3 * 60 = 180. I don't think an 11 year old is harmed by that…

> When I was in elementary school, my teachers told me it was very important to memorize multiplication tables because I wouldn't always have a calculator in my pocket. We know how that turned out.

This is a bit sad and dangerous.

I also resisted learning the multiplication tables because I was too prideful in being able to calculate them on the spot, but at least I memoized the easy ones like 5x 10x, 9x.

The objective of multiplication tables is not to be able to do the calculations that you need, but to aid in wider calculations. You learn the table of multiplications not because most calculations are going to be 1 digit by 1 digit, but because most calculations of more digits can be decomposed into single digit calculations. And further most calculations are part of more complex non math Chains of Thought.

Your teacher was building up your cache and LUT so that you could solve these in nanoseconds, and move on to higher order processes in your head. You haven't beaten the system by calling a 200ms API, you have cooked your ALU.

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

#410

Post by fnordpiglet »

achierius wrote: post #391
fnordpiglet wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competing with what? Homework is usually the minority of grade weight in almost every course and college entrance is largely based on entrance exams. Using AI to cheat on homework only cheats the students ability to complete and exam, let alone an entrance exam. People act as if cheating on homework is new with LLms. It’s not. The homework is there to guide you towards the exam, and exams are generally proctored to p…

> college entrance is largely based on entrance exams Not in the US it isn't. Grades > Exams > Extracurriculars is the usual hierarchy.

Except with inflation almost everyone applying to a top school has perfect grades. So it’s not a factor.
Post reply on HN