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Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

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Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#631

Post by Jblx2 »

curuinor wrote: post #625
tialaramex wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People used to memorize log and trig tables, and no one would say that's part of being a competent mathematician at this point Do you have evidence that it ever was part of being a competent mathematician? AIUI the trope of mathematicians who can't even do arithmetic was common already before the pocket calculator was introduced last century.

https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/ca... "It was said that when doing astronomical calculations that required logarithms, which are typically 10 digit numbers in log tables, [C. F. Gauss] would often just recall the logarithms instead of bothering to look them up."

Is this supposed to be one of those exceptions-prove-the-rule things?

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#633

Post by Uncle_Brumpus »

faidit wrote: post #510
everforward wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think some people are okay with communication that’s less involved. Like meme-y BSing where everyone involved knows everyone else is putting like 12% of their thinking power into sending a response. I don’t really enjoy that, so I find having that many threads stressful and annoying. I just take a hard line and will unilaterally downgrade communications (while politely letting the other party know). I have all my f…

We have to normalize being on silent all the time and making people wait hours for a response. Return to the primordial monkey of 1800s-era high-latency comms. At first, some people will be offended. "Why didn't you let me ping and buzz you and interrupt you all day? You didn't respond immediately each time :'((". Some people with unrealistic expectations may even stop talking to you entirely. But eventually (years m…

I am notoriously "bad" at texting. My phone's on silent almost 95% of the time, I don't even have a smartphone so the only way to get to me wirelessly is to call or text. I got really into sending mail last year, specifically postcards.

I have a list of ~10 people I would consider "close", immediate family and good friends, and 5 or 6 more tertiary contacts. I travel fairly frequently, so I had plenty of opportunities for sending postcards. I send cards for obscure holidays just because. The physical process of hand-writing messages is so therapeutic for me. I've probably sent ~250 postcards in the last year and a half.

I have received... 3 physical responses. It has been extremely disappointing, but I continue to send mail because I enjoy the process of writing the cards, and the knowledge that people probably appreciate the mail makes me feel good, so at least I get a little out of it myself.

My mom will occasionally text to say she liked the postcard, but has never bothered to send one back to me.

I would be delighted if more people chose to communicate slowly.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#634

Post by overgard »

camelmel wrote: post #35

I have some sympathy for these kids. If LLMs were around when I was a student, I would've also used them to "speed up" my homework assignments then proceed to fail all my tests. Now I work mostly with PhDs who were at the top of every academic environment they've ever been in. And yet I can see their thinking skills rapidly declining as well; many of them can no longer brainstorm, code, think deeply, or write without…

It's a really underrated problem. I don't think my actual cognitive skills have declined by using AI, but I do notice that my patience and attention span are a lot lower.

I'm learning a new code base for a new job right now, and I'm finding AI to be a really double edged sword for it. One one hand, it's extremely valuable for asking questions about the code base. On the other hand, if I'm not careful and I just let it apply the fix before I even investigate it, I'm really not learning the code base well at all. I find I need to actually write new code in a code base to exercise the necessary mental muscles to actually retain understanding.

Incidentally, I do find that this large new code base I'm learning also shows the limitations of AI. There's no way I can vibe features on this without understanding and not introduce a lot of issues. Even targeted bug fixes have a lot of unintended consequences the LLM doesn't see. This isn't a bad code base at all, but it's definitely at the size where even frontier models struggle. So to me that tells me that the argument that I should just use more AI to solve my AI issues and not bother to understand the code base isn't viable at the moment.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#635

Post by confidantlake »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #330
camelmel wrote: post #35

I have some sympathy for these kids. If LLMs were around when I was a student, I would've also used them to "speed up" my homework assignments then proceed to fail all my tests. Now I work mostly with PhDs who were at the top of every academic environment they've ever been in. And yet I can see their thinking skills rapidly declining as well; many of them can no longer brainstorm, code, think deeply, or write without…

> If LLMs were around when I was a student, I would've also used them to "speed up" my homework assignments then proceed to fail all my tests. You go to a university because you are deeply interested in understanding the subject that you study. Doing the homework and the tests are just the "goalposts" to check for yourself whether you made progress on this. So, as long as you are not under time pressure (which you in…

The main reason to go is you need that piece of paper.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#637

Post by epgui »

overgard wrote: post #634
camelmel wrote: post #35

I have some sympathy for these kids. If LLMs were around when I was a student, I would've also used them to "speed up" my homework assignments then proceed to fail all my tests. Now I work mostly with PhDs who were at the top of every academic environment they've ever been in. And yet I can see their thinking skills rapidly declining as well; many of them can no longer brainstorm, code, think deeply, or write without…

It's a really underrated problem. I don't think my actual cognitive skills have declined by using AI, but I do notice that my patience and attention span are a lot lower. I'm learning a new code base for a new job right now, and I'm finding AI to be a really double edged sword for it. One one hand, it's extremely valuable for asking questions about the code base. On the other hand, if I'm not careful and I just let i…

> I don't think my actual cognitive skills have declined by using AI

I'm not speaking about you but... I know most people would not have much awareness of their cognitive decline. I know this because that awareness gap is there with or without LLMs, across all age groups and cultures.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#638

Post by pellucide »

camelmel wrote: post #35

I have some sympathy for these kids. If LLMs were around when I was a student, I would've also used them to "speed up" my homework assignments then proceed to fail all my tests. Now I work mostly with PhDs who were at the top of every academic environment they've ever been in. And yet I can see their thinking skills rapidly declining as well; many of them can no longer brainstorm, code, think deeply, or write without…

Then its reasonabel to expect someone who is not using LLMs to have an edge in their cognitive abilies. Or will it be overshadowed by the shear magnitude of bruteforcing that LLMs are capable of. I tend to side with the former. If that would be true, then not using LLMs would give an edge in solving novel problems. But we have been dependent on tools, cognjtive and physical, since forever. We cant imagine a world without tools. Why would LLMs be discriminated as a tool

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#639

Post by dyauspitr »

adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #629

I feel like a lot of the lament expressed in the comments is grounded in loss aversion. We really don't like losing things —regardless of the objective (or subjective) value of that loss. We know this intellectually, but we still feel it emotionally. I'm feeling effects of using LLMs day in and day out, but I am not yet convinced that it's overwhelmingly negative, the way much of HN seems to lean. I derive a lot of j…

LLMs are great at reducing how much you work you personally have to do. This is the exact opposite of what we need kids in education to do.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#640

Post by rahimnathwani »

The grade data come from https://berkeleytime.com/grades

I was worried they may have cherrypicked courses that support their chosen narrative.

So I plotted the % of F grades (red line) for all CS courses still offered, and sorted the chart in descending order of the # grades given out (light blue vertical bars) in the most recent semester when the course was offered.

My worry was borne out. See the first few charts. No big increase in F % in the past few semesters.

https://x.com/rahimnathwani/status/2062431813143019525?s=61

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