61–70 of 828 posts
AI has a way of exposing people. In this example, students who are there to get a degree from a prestigious institution, rather than to learn, are prone to take perceived shortcuts and proceed to come unstuck when their AI isn't there to do their work for them, such as in an exam.
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Do any of said PhDs gain anything positive from LLM usage? Or does it only lead to declining thinking skills in your view?
They're incredibly more productive. LLMs are amplifiers, so where they'd have branched and tried out N things, they can easily try 5N pathways of RnD. LLMs are extending the frontiers of science fast -- math -> phy -> chem -> bio in that order.
I've heard LLMs can be helpful in limited targeted ways. But not as some kind of "game changing" accelerant.
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> Many of them can no longer sit quietly for even 30 minutes just thinking on their own Sorry, but I highly doubt that. Has a very "old man yells at clouds" vibe.
I doubt that you doubt that. I think you actually believe they're speaking truthfully and in good faith.
But apparently some of the smartest people in the world have lost the skill? But the commenter haven't, because why, they're 15 years older and thus immune to the same LLM-effects?
Plus, the issue with people having trouble sitting still for 30 minutes precede LLMs with decades.
> Some of the numbers that you saw from the number of students who receive failing grades were because we caught them (cheating) and prosecuted them and are sending their cases to the center for student conduct,” Garcia said. According to Garcia, nearly 30 students in CS 10 were caught cheating on take-home exams in spring 2026.
In my uni, rates of honor code violations in introductory CS classes were high even before AI. I was a section-leader for the CS106 series at Stanford, and the honor code violations were common. In 2015, ~20% of one intro class was suspected of an honor code violation [1]. Often, the CS department comprised the majority of honor code violations in a given quarter. There are several reasons for this: 1. Cheating in CS…
He apparently also makes (I would assume a satisfying amount of) money selling the same technology to law firms for copyright/patent analysis: https://www.similix.com
(I love these ultra minimal HTML sites, ex. https://www.hwaci.com (SQLite commercial licensing) for another example. It just has this subtle smugness, like you either don't need any new clients or virtually all of the market is your client.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do any of said PhDs gain anything positive from LLM usage? Or does it only lead to declining thinking skills in your view?
They're incredibly more productive. LLMs are amplifiers, so where they'd have branched and tried out N things, they can easily try 5N pathways of RnD. LLMs are extending the frontiers of science fast -- math -> phy -> chem -> bio in that order.
Trying 5N paths is useful and sometimes yields interesting insights I’ll retain, but it’s not the rich, challenging, deeply engaging kind of process I find I need in order to develop useful knowledge and skills.
So yes it’s an accelerant for people who want stuff from me, but that doesn’t map directly to learning and building skills. I think that mismatching is really important.
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Or how many are normally caught cheating? Did they use AI to detect AI using cheaters?
And if cheating was triggered using AI detectors, was it real? AI detectors are pretty mid in practice - they tend to have a lot of false positives for "B" students who are okay, but can still be struggled to be more coherent than AIs are. There are some specific triggers that AIs are way more likely to do than students, but a lot of AI detectors will trigger on this "almost there, but you're still struggling" level…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do any of said PhDs gain anything positive from LLM usage? Or does it only lead to declining thinking skills in your view?
They're incredibly more productive. LLMs are amplifiers, so where they'd have branched and tried out N things, they can easily try 5N pathways of RnD. LLMs are extending the frontiers of science fast -- math -> phy -> chem -> bio in that order.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt that you doubt that. I think you actually believe they're speaking truthfully and in good faith.
I doubt it. I'm stupid and I use LLMs a lot but I can still meditate for 30 minutes. But apparently some of the smartest people in the world have lost the skill? But the commenter haven't, because why, they're 15 years older and thus immune to the same LLM-effects? Plus, the issue with people having trouble sitting still for 30 minutes precede LLMs with decades.
> apparently some of the smartest people in the world have lost the skill?
> But the commenter haven't
> why?
Perhaps because a correlation you assumed was there (more smartness = more ability to sit still alone with one's thoughts), is not actually as strong as you thought? If one does not start with that assumption, there is no inherent conflict in the 3 pieces of evidence you cited.
Or perhaps because you are smarter than you give yourself credit for :)