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Study mode

openai.com

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Re: Study mode

#371

Post by jonny_eh »

sebzim4500 wrote: post #223
Workaccount2 wrote: post #65

An acquaintance of mine has a start-up in this space and uses OpenAI to do essentially the same thing. This must look like, and may well be, the guillotine for him... It's my primary fear building anything on these models, they can just come eat your lunch once it looks yummy enough. Tread carefully

I'm too young to have experienced this, but I'm sure others here aren't. During the early days of tech, was there prevailing wisdom that software companies would never be able to compete with hardware companies because the hardware companies would always be able to copy them and ship the software with the hardware? Because I think it's basically the analogous situation. People assume that the foundation model provide…

Claude Code and Gemini-CLI are able to offer much more value compared to startups (like Cursor) that need to pay for model access, largely due to the immense costs involved.

Re: Study mode

#372

Post by jonny_eh »

tokioyoyo wrote: post #209
mvieira38 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can't these founders see this happening, too? From the start OpenAI has been getting into more markets than just "LLM provider"

There’s a case for a start up to capture enough market that LLM providers would just buy it out. Think of CharacterAI case.

Character AI was never acquired, it remains independent.

Re: Study mode

#373

Post by cs_throwaway »

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 agree. We are talking about technical, mathy stuff, right?

As long as you can tell that you don’t deeply understand something that you just read, they are incredible TAs.

The trick is going to be to impart this metacognitive skill on the average student. I am hopeful we will figure it out in the top 50 universities.

Re: Study mode

#374

Post by roughly »

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…

My rule with LLMs has been "if a shitty* answer fast gets you somewhere, the LLMs are the right tool," and that's where I've seen them for learning, too. There are times when I'm reading a paper, and there's a concept mentioned that I don't know - I could either divert onto a full Google search to try to find a reasonable summary, or I can ask ChatGPT and get a quick answer. For load-bearing concepts or knowledge, yes, I need to put the time in to actually research and learn a concept accurately and fully, but for things tangential to my actual current interests or for things I'm just looking at for a hobby, a shitty answer fast is exactly what I want.

I think this is the same thing with vibe coding, AI art, etc. - if you want something good, it's not the right tool for the job. If your alternative is "nothing," and "literally anything at all" will do, man, they're game changers.

* Please don't overindex on "shitty" - "If you don't need something verifiably high-quality"

Re: Study mode

#375

Post by syphia »

In my experience as a math/physics TA, either a student cares enough about the material to reduce the resources they rely on, or they aim to pass the class with minimum effort and will take whatever shortcuts are available. I can only see AI filling the latter niche.

When the former students ask questions, I answer most of them by pointing at the relevant passage in their book/notes, questioning their interpretation of what the book says, or giving them a push to actually problem-solve on their own. On rare occasions the material is just confusing/poorly written and I'll decide to re-interpret it for them to help. But the fundamental problems are usually with study habits or reading comprehension, not poor explanations. They need to question their habits and their interpretation of what other people say, not be spoon fed more personally-tailored questions and answers and analogies and self-help advice.

Besides asking questions to make sure I understand the situation, I mostly repeat the same ten phrases or so. Finding those ten phrases was the hard part and required a bit of ingenuity and trial-and-error.

As for the latter students, they mostly care about passing and moving on, so arguing about the merits of such a system is fairly pointless. If it gets a good enough grade on their homework, it worked.

Re: Study mode

#376

Post by noosphr »

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.

This is where feeding in extra context matters. Paste in text that shows up from a google search, textbooks preferred, to get in depth answers.

No one builds multi shot search tools because they eat tokens like no ones business, but I've deployed them internal to a company with rave reviews at the cost of $200 per seat per day.

Re: Study mode

#377

Post by morgoths_bane »

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…

>I've had success getting it to offer the Carthaginian perspective in the Punic Wars.)

That's honestly one of the funniest things I have read on this site.

Re: Study mode

#378

Post by toisanji »

devmor wrote: post #161
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.

Every technology can be good or bad to an individual depending on how they use it. It is up to the user to decide how they will use the tool. For people who are really looking to learn a topic and understand in detail, then I think it can really help them to grasp the concepts.

Re: Study mode

#379

Post by jacobedawson »

An underrated quality of LLMs as study partner is that you can ask "stupid" questions without fear of embarrassment. Adding in a mode that doesn't just dump an answer but works to take you through the material step-by-step is magical. A tireless, capable, well-versed assistant on call 24/7 is an autodidact's dream.

I'm puzzled (but not surprised) by the standard HN resistance & skepticism. Learning something online 5 years ago often involved trawling incorrect, outdated or hostile content and attempting to piece together mental models without the chance to receive immediate feedback on intuition or ask follow up questions. This is leaps and bounds ahead of that experience.

Should we trust the information at face value without verifying from other sources? Of course not, that's part of the learning process. Will some (most?) people rely on it lazily without using it effectively? Certainly, and this technology won't help or hinder them any more than a good old fashioned textbook.

Personally I'm over the moon to be living at a time where we have access to incredible tools like this, and I'm impressed with the speed at which they're improving.

Re: Study mode

#380

Post by ants_everywhere »

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'm curious what you've used it to learn
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