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Study mode

openai.com

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Re: Study mode

#461

Post by archon810 »

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 was recently researching and repairing an older machine with a 2020 Intel Gen 9 CPU and a certain socket motherboard, and AI made it so much easier and pleasant to find information and present answers about various generations and sockets and compatibility, I felt like I didn't deserve this kind of tool. LLMs are not great for some things, but amazing for others.

Re: Study mode

#462

Post by physix »

ramraj07 wrote: post #441
romaniitedomum wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Learning something online 5 years ago often involved trawling incorrect, outdated or hostile content and attempting to piece together mental models without the chance to receive immediate feedback on intuition or ask follow up questions.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. But now, you're wondering if the answer the AI gave you is correct or something it hallucinated. Every time I find myself putting…

What exactly did 2025 AI hallucinate for you? The last time I've seen a hallucination from these things was a year ago. For questions that a kid or a student is going to answer im not sure any reasonable person should be worried about this.

I had Google Gemini 2.5 Flash analyse a log file and it quoted content that simply didn't exist.

It appears to me like a form of decoherence and very hard to predict when things break down.

People tend to know when they are guessing. LLMs don't.

Re: Study mode

#463

Post by ImaCake »

danny_codes wrote: post #418
jacobedawson wrote: post #379

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…

Consider the adoption of conventional technology in the classroom. The US has spent billions on new hardware and software for education, and yet there has been no improvement in learning outcomes. This is where the skepticism arises. Before we spend another $100 billion on something that ended up being worthless, we should first prove that it’s actually useful. So far, that hasn’t conclusively been demonstrated.

The article states that Study Mode is free to use. Regardless of b2b costs, this is free for you as an individual.

Re: Study mode

#464

Post by karaterobot »

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.

What are some subjects that ChatGPT has given only shallow instruction on?

I'll tell you that I recently found it the best resource on the web for teaching me about the 30 Years War. I was reading a collection of primary source documents, and was able to interview ChatGPT about them.

Last week I used it to learn how to create and use Lehmer codes, and its explanation was perfect, and much easier to understand than, for example, Wikipedia.

I ask it about truck repair stuff all the time, and it is also great at that.

I don't think it's great at literary analysis, but for factual stuff it has only ever blown away my expectations at how useful it is.

Re: Study mode

#465

Post by ToucanLoucan »

tekno45 wrote: post #450
cvoss wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But now, you're wondering if the answer the AI gave you is correct > a healthy dose of scepticism is essential. Arguably, that applies to traditional learning methods too, but that's another story. I don't think that is another story. This is the story of learning, no matter whether your teacher is a person or an AI. My high school science teacher routinely mispoke inadvertently while lecturing. The students who we…

How are you supposed to spot errors if you don't know the material? You're telling people to be experts before they know anything.

> You're telling people to be experts before they know anything.

I mean, that's absolutely my experience with heavy LLM users. Incredibly well versed in every topic imaginable, apart from all the basic errors they make.

Re: Study mode

#466

Post by maxsilver »

SLWW wrote: post #89
no_wizard wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

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…

> people don't just wake up and decide one day to be irrationally evil with no reason, if you believe that then you are a fool

The problem with this, is that people sometimes really do, objectively, wake up and device to be irrationally evil. It’s not every day, and it’s not every single person — but it does happen routinely.

If you haven’t experienced this wrath yourself, I envy you. But for millions of people, this is their actual, 100% honest truthful lived reality. You can’t rationalize people out of their hate, because most people have no rational basis for their hate.

(see pretty much all racism, sexism, transphobia, etc)

Re: Study mode

#467

Post by filoleg »

tekno45 wrote: post #450
cvoss wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But now, you're wondering if the answer the AI gave you is correct > a healthy dose of scepticism is essential. Arguably, that applies to traditional learning methods too, but that's another story. I don't think that is another story. This is the story of learning, no matter whether your teacher is a person or an AI. My high school science teacher routinely mispoke inadvertently while lecturing. The students who we…

How are you supposed to spot errors if you don't know the material? You're telling people to be experts before they know anything.

> How are you supposed to spot errors if you don't know the material?

By noticing that something is not adding up at a certain point. If you rely on an incorrect answer, further material will clash with it eventually one way or another in a lot of areas, as things are typically built one on top of another (assuming we are talking more about math/cs/sciences/music theory/etc., and not something like history).

At that point, it means that either the teacher (whether it is a human or ai) made a mistake or you are misunderstanding something. In either scenario, the most correct move is to try clarifying it with the teacher (and check other sources of knowledge on the topic afterwards to make sure, in case things are still not adding up).

Re: Study mode

#468

Post by scarface_74 »

jacobedawson wrote: post #379

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…

I know some Spanish - close to B1. I find ChatGPT to be a much better way to study than the standard language apps. I can create custom lessons, ask questions about language nuances etc. I can also have it speak the sentences and practice pronunciation.

Re: Study mode

#469

Post by taurath »

Its pretty awfully telling the state of things that this is a Product - not an expansion of base capability. You can do this with any LLM with simple bounds on the prompts.

> Under the hood, study mode is powered by custom system instructions we’ve written in collaboration with teachers, scientists, and pedagogy experts to reflect a core set of behaviors that support deeper learning including: encouraging active participation, managing cognitive load, proactively developing metacognition and self reflection, fostering curiosity, and providing actionable and supportive feedback.

I'm calling bullshit, show me the experts, I want to see that any qualified humans actually participated in this. I think they did their "collaboration" in ChatGPT which spit out this list.

Re: Study mode

#470

Post by dankwizard »

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 the part where you actually need to think and wonder if AI is the right tool in this particular purpose. Unfortunately you can't completely turn your brain off just yet.
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