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I Wasn't Allowed Prompting ChatGPT During My Chalk Talk: This Is Discrimination (2025)

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Re: I Wasn't Allowed Prompting ChatGPT During My Chalk Talk: This Is Discrimination (2025)

#101

Post by epihelix »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #96
Dylan16807 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really follow this comparison. The protagonist was able to use an AI in the same ways they could use a calculator or most tools. You don't use them in the middle of delivering a presentation.

Sure you do (but I’m pretty sure the original was a joke). Calculators, computers, phones, etc., are standard parts of any design meeting, these days. I interviewed a number of folks, over the years, that brought laptops, and used them to demonstrate their work.

In research science, it's very normal to require zero aids at an interview, and has been for some time. No calculators, no laptops, no phones -- just you.

Yes, you'll also give a seminar with slides to present your prior work, but the whole point of the chalktalk is that it's you, and you alone, presenting your future plans. You're grilled by the faculty on your ideas, and you have to defend yourself without any props or crutches.

Re: I Wasn't Allowed Prompting ChatGPT During My Chalk Talk: This Is Discrimination (2025)

#103

Post by solresol »

avaer wrote: post #92

A funny piece, but what if all of the following are true: - AI *is* how real research is done - Incentives are such that this is how researchers must work - Academia institution does not have a structure to accept this reality Academia did this to itself. By hiring based on volume of output/citations, the way for researchers to win is to game the system better than the next person. AI just exposes that the old power…

In some fields, all of those statements are true already.

In a large number of few fields, all of those statements will be true in the near future (10 years maximum).

There's no reason that the Humboldtian model should be the right structure for the next century's universities, just as it wasn't the right structure for the 18th century's universities.

Re: I Wasn't Allowed Prompting ChatGPT During My Chalk Talk: This Is Discrimination (2025)

#104

Post by Cpoll »

SteinsGoat wrote: post #76

I mean... this has to be satirical, right? Surely nobody in the field of academia is this limited in their ability....

> this has to be satirical, right?

Right.

> Surely nobody in the field of academia is this limited in their ability....

Wrong.

Re: I Wasn't Allowed Prompting ChatGPT During My Chalk Talk: This Is Discrimination (2025)

#105

Post by simonh »

handoflixue wrote: post #87
ekelsen wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the argument is necessarily against the use of the tools entirely. My interpretation is that it's against delegating to them all understanding. Humans can only usefully steer LLMs if they have some understanding or context the LLMs do not.

The person in the story can clearly usefully steer LLMs if they got that far. So either they have that understanding and context, or it's not actually as valuable as was previously thought.

She says she can usefully steer LLMs, but how would she know? What knowledge of the research topic, methods and their applicability would she use to judge that, if all she’s doing is writing a prompt asking ChatGPT to write a summary of her research topic, methods and their applicability?

Supposing using LLMs as research tools is fine, the chalk talk is still necessary to test that the researcher has the fundamental skills and knowledge necessary to discriminate usefully between alternative responses, and refine prompts and such. You can’t just get a response from an LLM and then refine it for your specific needs by saying “now refine that reply for my specific needs”. You need to know and understand what those are, and why.

Re: I Wasn't Allowed Prompting ChatGPT During My Chalk Talk: This Is Discrimination (2025)

#106

Post by LIMEVINCE »

avaer wrote: post #92

A funny piece, but what if all of the following are true: - AI *is* how real research is done - Incentives are such that this is how researchers must work - Academia institution does not have a structure to accept this reality Academia did this to itself. By hiring based on volume of output/citations, the way for researchers to win is to game the system better than the next person. AI just exposes that the old power…

[dead]

Re: I Wasn't Allowed Prompting ChatGPT During My Chalk Talk: This Is Discrimination (2025)

#107

Post by LIMEVINCE »

Dependance wrote: post #16
mrgoldenbrown wrote: post #11

This is satire.

Honest question : does it need to be said ? It's like the /s sign. Can some people not, for themselves, realize that this text is meant as a more or less a joke ? And before you ask, yeah, I am aware some of the people are on the spectrum, but still... Is humor that hard to grasp on the internet ?

Sadly I have to admit I read it and didn't know it was satire. The way they described using LLMs to to achieve research results sounded plausible enough to me. As an attorney, I also fear a race to the bottom where legal research becomes simply editing the work of AI. Also, the idea of being subject to a test with little relationship to professional practice reminds me of the bar exam; which requires intimate knowledge of almost all areas of the law despite the fact that practicing attorneys generally are only familiar with their specializations (eg, it would be unwise to retain a civil rights attorney to represent you for even a traffic violation); and requires all the knowledge to be memorized, even though it would be unthinkable (and most likely malpractice) for any attorney to practice relying solely on memory.

I also suspect that there are attorneys out there who are starting to use LLMs to generate legal work with a method similar to what the author described (generate prompt, revise minimally). Lawyers are taught to write a certain way which LLMs mirror flawlessly; the surest way to identify LLM generated legal writing is if it happens to hallucinate citations. I used to regularly find hallucinated citations, and occasionally strange reasoning, but both have largely vanished as the LLMS improve.

Re: I Wasn't Allowed Prompting ChatGPT During My Chalk Talk: This Is Discrimination (2025)

#108

Post by dag100 »

solresol wrote: post #103
avaer wrote: post #92

A funny piece, but what if all of the following are true: - AI *is* how real research is done - Incentives are such that this is how researchers must work - Academia institution does not have a structure to accept this reality Academia did this to itself. By hiring based on volume of output/citations, the way for researchers to win is to game the system better than the next person. AI just exposes that the old power…

In some fields, all of those statements are true already. In a large number of few fields, all of those statements will be true in the near future (10 years maximum). There's no reason that the Humboldtian model should be the right structure for the next century's universities, just as it wasn't the right structure for the 18th century's universities.

Wow, I can't wait to live in a world where nobody knows how anything works, some people are arbitrarily rich and some arbitrarily poor with no ability to change their standing in life, and, worst of all, people celebrate these developments, even if they may be in the poor cohort, as progress.

Re: I Wasn't Allowed Prompting ChatGPT During My Chalk Talk: This Is Discrimination (2025)

#109

Post by vector_vibe »

Dependance wrote: post #16
mrgoldenbrown wrote: post #11

This is satire.

Honest question : does it need to be said ? It's like the /s sign. Can some people not, for themselves, realize that this text is meant as a more or less a joke ? And before you ask, yeah, I am aware some of the people are on the spectrum, but still... Is humor that hard to grasp on the internet ?

exactly!

Re: I Wasn't Allowed Prompting ChatGPT During My Chalk Talk: This Is Discrimination (2025)

#110

Post by dag100 »

CodesInChaos wrote: post #38
Dependance wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question : does it need to be said ? It's like the /s sign. Can some people not, for themselves, realize that this text is meant as a more or less a joke ? And before you ask, yeah, I am aware some of the people are on the spectrum, but still... Is humor that hard to grasp on the internet ?

I regularly get reddit comments downvoted by people who don't recognize it's obviously satire. Sometimes somebody else comments "why is this getting downvoted, it's satire", and that stops or reverses the influx of downvotes.

It's reddit. The average intelligence of reddit users has been progressing downwards since 2010 or so with major drops in 2016 and 2020. Most users are clueless teenagers who haven't read a book in full throughout their lives.
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