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Study mode

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Re: Study mode

#161

Post by devmor »

toisanji wrote: post #25

I truly believe AI will change all of education for the better, but of course it can also hinder learning if used improperly. Those who want to genuinely learn will learn while those looking for shortcuts will cause more harm to themselves. I just did a show HN today about something semi related. I made A deep research assistant for families. Children can ask questions to explain difficult concepts and for parents to…

Do you genuinely have any non-anecdotal reason to believe that AI will improve education, or is it just hope?

I ask because every serious study on using modern generative AI tools tends to conclude fairly immediate and measurable deleterious effects on cognitive ability.

Re: Study mode

#162

Post by SLWW »

scarmig wrote: post #115
SLWW wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My core problem with LLMs is as you say; it's good for some simpler concepts, tasks, etc. but when you need to dive into more complex topics it will oversimplify, give you what you didn't ask for, or straight up lie by omission. History is a great example, if you ask an LLM about a vaguely difficult period in history it will just give you one side and act like the other doesn't exist, or if there is another side, it…

A few weeks ago I was asking an LLM to offer anti-heliocentric arguments, from the perspective of an intelligent scientist. Although it initially started with what was almost a parody of writing from that period, with some prompting I got it to generate a strong rendition of anti-heliocentric arguments. (On the other hand, it's very hard to get them to do it for topics that are currently politically charged. Less so…

That's a fun idea; almost having it "play pretend" instead of directly asking it for strong anti-heliocentric arguments outright.

It's weird to see which topics it "thinks" are politically charged vs. others. I've noticed some inconsistency depending on even what years you input into your questions. One year off? It will sometimes give you a more unbiased answer as a result about the year you were actually thinking of.

Re: Study mode

#163

Post by gbalduzzi »

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.

Are we really comparing this research to just writing and having a good answer in a couple of seconds?

Like, I agree with you and I believe those things will resist and will always be important, but it doesn't really compare in this case.

Last week I was in the nature and I saw a cute bird that I didn't know. I asked an AI and got the correct answer in 10 seconds. Of course I would find the answer at the library or by looking at proper niche sites, but I would not have done it because I simply didn't care that much. It's a stupid example but I hope it makes the point

Re: Study mode

#164

Post by abenga »

vrotaru wrote: post #88
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…

You should always check. I've seen LLM's being wrong (and obstinate) on topics which are one step separated from common knowledge. I had to post the source code to win the dispute, so to speak.

Why would you try to convince an LLM of anything?

Re: Study mode

#165

Post by righthand »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #121
righthand wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t do any of that, it just captures the student market more. They want a student to use it and say “I wouldn’t have learned anything without study mode”. This also allows them to fill their data coffers more with bleeding edge education. “Please input the data you are studying and we will summarize it for you.”

> It doesn’t do any of that Not to be contrarian, but do you have any evidence of this assertion? Or are you just confidently confabulating a response for something outside of the data you've been exposed to? Because a commentor below provided a study that directly contradicts this.

A study that directly contradicts what exactly?

Re: Study mode

#166

Post by precompute »

x187463 wrote: post #114

I'm really waiting for somebody to figure out the correct interface for all this. For example, study mode will present you with a wall of text containing information, examples, and questions. There's no great way to associate your answers with specific questions. The chat interface just isn't good for this sort of interaction. ChatGPT really needs to build its own canvas/artifact interface wherein questions/responses…

There is no "correct interface". People who want to learn put in the effort, doesn't matter if they have scrolls, books, ebooks or AI.

Re: Study mode

#167

Post by johnfn »

ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 wrote: post #112
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 No, not really. > 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. Your experience isn't universal. Some students learned how to do research in school.

"Screwed" = spending hours sifting through poorly-written, vaguely-related documents to find a needle in a haystack. Why would I want to continue doing that?

Re: Study mode

#168

Post by potatolicious »

thimabi wrote: post #134
potatolicious wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "they can just come eat your lunch once it looks yummy enough. Tread carefully" True, and worse, they're hungry because it's increasingly seeming like "hosting LLMs and charging by the token" is not terribly profitable. I don't really see a path for the major players that isn't "Sherlock everything that achieves traction".

But what’s the future in terms of profitability of LLM providers? As long as features like Study Mode are little more than creative prompting, any provider will eventually be able to offer them and offer token-based charging.

I think a few points worth making here:

- From what I can see many products are rapidly getting past "just prompt engineering the base API". So even though a lot of these things were/are primitive, I don't think it's necessarily a good bet that they will remain so. Though agree in principle - thin API wrappers will be out-competed both by cheaper thin wrappers, or products that are more sophisticated/better than thin wrappers.

- This is, oddly enough, a scenario that is way easier to navigate than the rest of the LLM industry. We know consumer apps, we know consumer apps that do relatively basic (or at least, well understood) things. Success/failure then is way less about technical prowess and more about classical factors like distribution, marketing, integrations, etc.

A good example here is the lasting success of paid email providers. Multiple vendors (MSFT, GOOG, etc.) make huge amounts of money hosting people's email, despite it being a mature product that, at the basic level, is pretty solved, and where the core product can be replicated fairly easily.

The presence of open source/commodity commercial offerings hasn't really driven the price of the service to the floor, though the commodity offerings do provide some pricing pressure.

Re: Study mode

#169

Post by beambot »

no_wizard wrote: post #49
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…

>Now, everyone basically has a personal TA, ready to go at all hours of the day This simply hasn't been my experience. Its too shallow. The deeper I go, the less it seems to be useful. This happens quick for me. Also, god forbid you're researching a complex and possibly controversial subject and you want it to find reputable sources or particularly academic ones.

The worst is when it's confidently wrong about things... Thankfully, this occurance is becoming less & less common -- or at least, it's boundary is beyond my subject matter expertise.

Re: Study mode

#170

Post by gbalduzzi »

dcbb65b2bcb6e6a wrote: post #131
sejje wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not my experience that there are missing pieces as compared to anything else. Nobody can write an exhaustive tome and explore every feature, use, problem, and pitfall of Python, for example. Every text on the topic will omit something. It's hardly a criticism. I don't want exhaustive. The llm taught me what I asked it to teach me. That's what I hope it will do, not try to caution me about everything I could do w…

You are right and that's my point. To me it just feels like that too many people think LLMs are the holy grail for learning. No, you still have to study a lot. Yes, it can be easier than it was.

Your other responses kinda imply that you believe LLMs are not good for learning.

That's totally different than saying they are not flawless but they make learning easier than other methods, like you did in this comment

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