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Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

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Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#571

Post by RationPhantoms »

eternauta3k wrote: post #532
turtletontine wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m similarly worried about businesses all making “rational” decisions to replace their employees with “AI”, wherever they think they can get away with it. (Note that’s not the same thing as wherever “AI” can do the job well!) But I think one place where this hits a wall is liability and accountability. Lots of low stakes things will be enshittified by “AI” replacements for actual human work. But for things like airl…

No, we already have autonomous cars driving around even though they've already killed people.

This is a poor take. They are objectively safer drives then their human counterpart. Yes, with those unfortunate deaths included.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#572

Post by dsign »

Caveat, I'm just armchair-commenting and I haven't thought much about this.

After kids learn to read and do arithmetic, shouldn't we go back to apprenticeships? The system of standardized teaching and grading seems to be about to collapse, and what's the point of memorizing things when you can carry all that knowledge in your pocket? And, anyway, it doesn't stick until you have to use it for something. Plus, a teacher seems to be insufficient to control all the students in a classroom (but that's nothing new; it amazes me that I was able to learn anything at all in elementary school, with all the mayhem there always was in the classroom).

Okay, I can already see a lot of downsides to this, starting with the fact that I would be an illiterate farmer if some in my family had had a say in my education. But maybe the aggregate outcome would be better than what is coming?

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#573

Post by armchairhacker »

Balgair wrote: post #455
math_dandy wrote: post #28

I teach math at a large university (30,000 students) and have also gone “back to the earth”, to pen-and-paper, proctored and exams. Students don’t seem to mind this reversion. The administration, however, doesn’t like this trend. They want all evaluation to be remote-friendly, so that the same course with the same evaluations can be given to students learning in person or enrolled online. Online enrollment is a huge…

I think you've identified the main issue here: LLMs aren't destroying the University or the essay. LLMs are destroying the cheap University or essay. Cheap can mean a lot of things, like money or time or distance. But, if Universities want to maintain a standard, then they are going to have to work for it again. No more 300+ person freshman lectures (where everyone cheated anyways). No more take-home zoom exams. No m…

Cheap "universities" are fine for accreditation. Exams can be administered via in-person proctoring services, which test the bare minimum. The real test would be when students are hired, in the probationary period. While entry-level hires may be unreliable, and even in the best case not help the company much, this is already a problem (perhaps it can be solved by the government or some other outside organization paying the new hire instead of the company, although I haven't thought about it much).

Students can learn for free via online resources, forums, and LLM tutors (the less-trustworthy forums and LLMs should primarily be used to assist understanding the more-trustworthy online resources). EDIT: students can get hands-on-experience via an internship, possibly unpaid.

Real universities should continue to exist for their cutting-edge research and tutoring from very talented people, because that can't be commodified. At least until/if AI reaches expert competence (in not just knowledge but application), but then we don't need jobs either.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#574

Post by Balgair »

armchairhacker wrote: post #573
Balgair wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've identified the main issue here: LLMs aren't destroying the University or the essay. LLMs are destroying the cheap University or essay. Cheap can mean a lot of things, like money or time or distance. But, if Universities want to maintain a standard, then they are going to have to work for it again. No more 300+ person freshman lectures (where everyone cheated anyways). No more take-home zoom exams. No m…

Cheap "universities" are fine for accreditation. Exams can be administered via in-person proctoring services, which test the bare minimum. The real test would be when students are hired, in the probationary period. While entry-level hires may be unreliable, and even in the best case not help the company much, this is already a problem (perhaps it can be solved by the government or some other outside organization payi…

> Real universities should continue to exist for their cutting-edge research and tutoring from very talented people, because that can't be commodified. At least until/if AI reaches expert competence (in not just knowledge but application), but then we don't need jobs either.

Okay, woah, I hadn't thought of that. I'm sitting here thinking that education for it's own sake is one of the reasons that we're trying to get rid of labor and make LLMs. Like, I enjoy learning and think my job gets in the way of that.

I hand't thought that people would want to just not do education of any sort anymore.

That's a little mind blowing.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#575

Post by aryamaan »

plantwallshoe wrote: post #496
danielhep wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m wondering how the undergrad CS course is as an experienced dev and why you decided to do that? I have been a software developer for 5 years with an EE degree, and as I do more software engineering and less EE I feel like I am missing some CS concepts that my colleagues have. Is this your situation too or did you have another reason? And why not a masters?

A mix of feeling I’m “missing” some CS concepts and just general intellectual curiosity. I am planning on doing a masters but I need some undergrad CS credits to be a qualified candidate. I don’t think I’m going to do the whole undergrad. Overall my experience has been positive. I’ve really enjoyed Discrete Math and coming to understand how I’ve been using set theory without really understanding it for years. I’m rea…

as I am also thinking mildly about doing masters cause I want to break into ai research, I am curious what your motivations are, if you would be open to share those.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#576

Post by armchairhacker »

Balgair wrote: post #574
armchairhacker wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheap "universities" are fine for accreditation. Exams can be administered via in-person proctoring services, which test the bare minimum. The real test would be when students are hired, in the probationary period. While entry-level hires may be unreliable, and even in the best case not help the company much, this is already a problem (perhaps it can be solved by the government or some other outside organization payi…

> Real universities should continue to exist for their cutting-edge research and tutoring from very talented people, because that can't be commodified. At least until/if AI reaches expert competence (in not just knowledge but application), but then we don't need jobs either. Okay, woah, I hadn't thought of that. I'm sitting here thinking that education for it's own sake is one of the reasons that we're trying to get…

Some people go to college to learn, some go just to get a job. I think colleges should still exist for the former, but the latter should be able to instead use online resources then get accredited (which they'd do if it gave them the same job prospects).

That would also let professors devote more time towards teaching the former, and less time grading and handling grade complaints (from either group, since the former can also be graded by the accreditation and, if they get a non-academic job, in their probationary period).

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#577

Post by johnea »

johnea wrote: post #569
pugio wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a person hallucinates a dragon coming for them, they are wrong, but we still use a different word to more precisely indicate the class of error. Not all llm errors are hallucinations - if an llm tells me that 3 + 5 is 7, It's just wrong. If it tells me that the source for 3 + 5 being 7 is a seminal paper entitled "On the relative accuracy of summing numbers to a region +-1 from the fourth prime", we would call t…

I think your defense of reusing terms for new phenomenon is fair. But in this specific case, I would say the reuse of this particular word, to apply to this particular error, is still incorrect. A person hallucinating is based on a many leveled experience of consciousness. The LLM has nothing of the sort. It doesn't have a hierarchy of knowledge which it is sorting to determine what is correct and what is not. It doe…

To cite integrative-psych:

https://www.integrative-psych.org/resources/confabulation-no...

"...this usage is misleading, as it suggests a perceptual process that LLMs, which lack sensory input, do not possess."

They prefer the word "confabulation", but I would also differ with that.

They define confabulation: "the brain creates plausible but incorrect memories to fill gaps".

Since, as with the lack of perceptions, LLMs are not retaining anything like a memory, I would also argue this term is inappropriate.

In terms of differentiating error categories, it's straightforward to specify, math error, spelling error, grammatical error, when those occur.

In the case of syntactically correct, but factually incorrect output, the word "wrong" describes this specific error category much more accurately than "hallucinate", which carries a host of inaccurate psychological implications.

This also speaks to a main point of my original post, that the use of "hallucinate" is euphemistic.

When we use a s/w tool for the input of human language questions, with the objective of receiving correct human language answers, just having a syntactically correct answer is not sufficient.

It needs to be emphasized that answers in this category are "wrong", they are not factually correct.

Using the word "hallucinate" is making an excuse for, and thus obfuscating, this factual error generated by the s/w tool.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#578

Post by randcraw »

A good start for this debate would be to reconsider the term "AI", perhaps choosing a term that's more intuitive, like "automation" or "robot assistant". It's obvious that learning to automate a task is no way to learn how to do it yourself. Nor is asking a robot to do it for you.

Students need to understand that learning to write requires the mastery of multiple distinct cognitive and organizational skills, only the last of which is to generate text that doesn't sound stupid.

Each of writing's component tasks must be understood and explicitly addressed by the student, to wit: (1) choosing a topic to argue, and the component points to make a narrative, (2) outlining the research questions needed to answer each point, and finally, (3) choosing ONLY the relevant points that are necessary AND sufficient to the argument AND based on referenced facts, and that ONLY THEN can be threaded into a coherent logical narrative exposition that makes the intended argument and that leads to the desired conclusion.

Only then has the student actually mastered the craft of writing an essay. If they are not held responsible for implementing each and every one of these steps in the final product, they have NOT learned how to write. Their robot did. That essay is a FAIL because the robot has earned the grade; not they. They just came along for the ride, like ballast in a sailing ship.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#579

Post by noitpmeder »

nathan_compton wrote: post #449
TheFreim wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Punishing honest students by ensuring that they will fail unless they cheat is an absurd solution. In school I went to great lengths to do my work well and on my own. It was disheartening to see other students openly cheat and do well, but at least I knew that I was performing well on my own merits. Under your system, I would have been actively punished for not cheating. What's the point of developing a cure that's w…

It isn't a punishment if the AI is doing the work. The goal is to make students utilize the skills they will need now that AI can supplement their abilities.

But are AIs now _required_? If you're tailoring the class to allow growth potential for students using AI, what happens to the students who cannot use it (for whatever reason)?

It's a bit similar to making a class harder because some students are getting extra help via private tutoring.

Re: Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine

#580

Post by whatnow37373 »

eru wrote: post #223
timr wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and yet, somehow we managed? > Show some imagination for why other people hold their positions. I say that as someone who has also graded piles of paper exams in graduate school (also not that long ago!) I don't believe the argument you are making is true, but if the primary objection really is that teachers have to grade , then no, I don't have any sympathy.

> ...and yet, somehow we managed? People in the past put up with all kinds of struggles. They had to. > I don't believe the argument you are making is true, but if the primary objection really is that teachers have to grade, then no, I don't have any sympathy. I have no clue what the primary objection really is. I was responding to "I don't see why this is so hard", which just shows a lack of imagination.

You’re making it seem those guys worked the fields 14 hours straight. It’s just some paperwork..
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