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Study mode

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Re: Study mode

#51

Post by LordDragonfang »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #12

I'm not sure about the audience for this, if you're already willing to learn the material you probably already engage with AI in a way that isn't "please output the answers for me" because you're likely self-aware enough to know that "answering" isn't always "understanding." Maybe this mode makes that a little easier? but I doubt it's significant If you're the other 90% of students that are only learning to check the…

I mean, it's about context, isn't it?

Just like it's easier to be productive if you have a separate home office and couch, because of the differing psychological contexts, it's easier if you have a separate context for "just give me answers" and "actually teach me the thing".

Also, I don't know about you, but (as a professional) even though I actively try to learn the principals behind the code generated, I don't always want to spend the effort prompting the model away from the "just give me results with a simple explanation" personality I've cultivated. It'd be nice having a mode with that work done for me.

Re: Study mode

#53

Post by lmc »

czhu12 wrote: post #26

I'll personally attest: LLM's have been absolutely incredible to self learn new things post graduation. It used to be that if you got stuck on a concept, you're basically screwed. Unless it was common enough to show up in a well formed question on stack exchange, it was pretty much impossible, and the only thing you can really do is keep paving forward and hope at some point, it'll make sense to you. Now, everyone ba…

> I'll personally attest: LLM's have been absolutely incredible to self learn new things post graduation.

How do you know when it's bullshitting you though?

Re: Study mode

#54

Post by teeray »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #31
swader999 wrote: post #4

Why do I still feel like I'll be paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for my children's education when all they're going to do is all learn through AI anyway.

At my university I took a physics course where the homework was always 4-6 gimmick questions or proofs that were so hard that we would form groups after class just to copy whoever could divine the solutions. I ultimately dropped the course and took it in the summer at a community college where we had the 20-30 standard practice problem homework where you apply what you learned in class and grind problems to bake it i…

> or proofs that were so hard that we would form groups after class just to copy whoever could divine the solutions.

These groups were some of the most valuable parts of the university experience for me. We'd get take-out, invade some conference room, and slam our heads against these questions well into the night. By the end of it, sure... our answers looked superficially similar, but it was because we had built a mutual, deep understanding of the answer—not just copying the answers.

Even if you had only a rough understanding, the act of trying to teach it again to others in the group made you both understand it better.

Re: Study mode

#56

Post by ainiriand »

czhu12 wrote: post #26

I'll personally attest: LLM's have been absolutely incredible to self learn new things post graduation. It used to be that if you got stuck on a concept, you're basically screwed. Unless it was common enough to show up in a well formed question on stack exchange, it was pretty much impossible, and the only thing you can really do is keep paving forward and hope at some point, it'll make sense to you. Now, everyone ba…

I've learnt Rust in 12 weeks with a study plan that ChatGPT designed for me, catering to my needs and encouraging me to take notes and write articles. This way of learning allowed me to publish https://rustaceo.es for Spanish speakers made from my own notes.

I think the potential in this regard is limitless.

Re: Study mode

#57

Post by avn2109 »

dcbb65b2bcb6e6a wrote: post #46
czhu12 wrote: post #26

I'll personally attest: LLM's have been absolutely incredible to self learn new things post graduation. It used to be that if you got stuck on a concept, you're basically screwed. Unless it was common enough to show up in a well formed question on stack exchange, it was pretty much impossible, and the only thing you can really do is keep paving forward and hope at some point, it'll make sense to you. Now, everyone ba…

> LLM's have been absolutely incredible to self learn new things post graduation. I haven't tested them on many things. But in the past 3 weeks I tried to vibe code a little bit VHDL. On the one hand it was a fun journey, I could experiment a lot and just iterated fast. But if I was someone who had no idea about hardware design, then this trash would've guided me the wrong way in numerous situations. I can't even cou…

LLM's are useful because they can recommend several famous/well-known books (or even chapters of books) that are relevant to a particular topic. Then you can also use the LLM to illuminate the inevitable points of confusion and shortcomings in those books while you're reading and synthesizing them.

Pre-LLM, even finding the ~5 textbooks with ~3 chapters each that decently covered the material I want was itself a nontrivial problem. Now that problem is greatly eased.

Re: Study mode

#58

Post by Workaccount2 »

swader999 wrote: post #4

Why do I still feel like I'll be paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for my children's education when all they're going to do is all learn through AI anyway.

And then compete with the same AI that taught them their degree for a job with their degree.

Re: Study mode

#59

Post by _hao »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #12

I'm not sure about the audience for this, if you're already willing to learn the material you probably already engage with AI in a way that isn't "please output the answers for me" because you're likely self-aware enough to know that "answering" isn't always "understanding." Maybe this mode makes that a little easier? but I doubt it's significant If you're the other 90% of students that are only learning to check the…

I think as with everything related to learning if you're conscientious and studious this will be a major boost (no idea, but I plan on trying it out tonight on some math I've been studying). And likewise if you just use it to do your homework without putting in the effort you won't see any benefit or actively degrade.

Re: Study mode

#60

Post by sejje »

holsta wrote: post #43
czhu12 wrote: post #26

I'll personally attest: LLM's have been absolutely incredible to self learn new things post graduation. It used to be that if you got stuck on a concept, you're basically screwed. Unless it was common enough to show up in a well formed question on stack exchange, it was pretty much impossible, and the only thing you can really do is keep paving forward and hope at some point, it'll make sense to you. Now, everyone ba…

> It used to be that if you got stuck on a concept, you're basically screwed. We were able to learn before LLMs. Libraries are not a new thing. FidoNet, USENET, IRC, forums, local study/user groups. You have access to all of Wikipedia. Offline, if you want.

I learned how to code using the library in the 90s.

I think it's accurate to say that if I had to do that again, I'm basically screwed.

Asking the LLM is a vastly superior experience.

I had to learn what my local library had, not what I wanted. And it was an incredible slog.

IRC groups is another example--I've been there. One or two topics have great IRC channels. The rest have idle bots and hostile gatekeepers.

The LLM makes a happy path to most topics, not just a couple.

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