"the very foundation of modern academia has been blown to bits" • Hacker News Board

Re: "the very foundation of modern academia has been blown to bits"

#31

Post by eddythompson80 » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 9:45 AM UTC

Chance-Device wrote: post #28

eddythompson80 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are saying that the value of most PhDs was in the learning the student got in the process, not in the PhD itself. Groundbreaking PhDs exist, but they are far, far , from the norm or expectation. Exceptional people doing exceptional work will always exist. > your thesis had no value to begin with, because it’s mainly a teaching exercise And that’s the problem in your understanding. Thinking that a teaching exerci…

Well no, it’s a problem in your understanding of what I’ve written. The thesis and what’s learned along the way are separate objects with separate value, and you’ve decided to misread me in order to have something to be indignant about. However, to expand on a point I didn’t originally raise: learning itself is likely also reduced with AI assistance. That’s a fairly natural consequence of having to do less work yours…

Pretty sure I understood you just fine as you’re just doubling down on your misunderstanding.

Re: "the very foundation of modern academia has been blown to bits"

#32

Post by ShinyLeftPad » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 9:48 AM UTC

haritha-j wrote: post #14

The largest output of a PhD has always been the training to the student, not the thesis itself, hence why we're called 'students'. Anyone claiming that a thesis can be generated by AI is missing the point. AI can also do everything an undergrad can do, we don't claim that undergrad education has been blown to bits. At best, we say we need better modes of evaluation, and perhaps that's true for PhDs as well. I submitt…

> we don't claim that undergrad education has been blown to bits

We don't??

Re: "the very foundation of modern academia has been blown to bits"

#33

Post by tgv » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 9:48 AM UTC

Chance-Device wrote: post #9

We’re at the point of learning that some things that used to matter no longer do, and some things we used to think mattered never did. It’s a going to be a shock to everyone, and this same phenomenon is happening everywhere, not just academia or software engineering. My bet: a lot of the things we used to do were habit, ceremony and gatekeeping much more than being necessities.

Is that your way of saying: I don't care? Because it sounds are if you're relativizing the problems to the level where you don't have to.

You don't specify what you think "no longer matters." And so there's no way to judge what you think is the impact.

> My bet: a lot of the things we used to do were habit, ceremony and gatekeeping much more than being necessities.

Yeah, right. "I've got a calculator, so we no longer need to learn arithmetic." It's the way of the ostrich.

Re: "the very foundation of modern academia has been blown to bits"

#34

Post by Chance-Device » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 9:49 AM UTC

thom wrote: post #26

Chance-Device wrote: post #9

We’re at the point of learning that some things that used to matter no longer do, and some things we used to think mattered never did. It’s a going to be a shock to everyone, and this same phenomenon is happening everywhere, not just academia or software engineering. My bet: a lot of the things we used to do were habit, ceremony and gatekeeping much more than being necessities.

You’re probably right, but I’d also bet some things that we’re about to sweep aside will turn out to have been necessities and we’ll find it very difficult to bring them back.

To be pedantic about it, if something is a necessity it can’t be done without by definition. So if you’re in that position whatever you’re talking about wasn’t a necessity. Is this like Socrates thinking that reading will make people lazy and forgetful?

Re: "the very foundation of modern academia has been blown to bits"

#35

Post by throw310822 » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 9:51 AM UTC

eddythompson80 wrote: post #21

Chance-Device wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re sort of saying that’s because your thesis had no value to begin with, because it’s mainly a teaching exercise. I’m not saying that it doesn’t have value by the way, I’m sure it was good, that’s just my read of your post. It’s an interesting subject. Makes me want to vibe code a PhD generator just like in the tweet. Maybe I will.

They are saying that the value of most PhDs was in the learning the student got in the process, not in the PhD itself. Groundbreaking PhDs exist, but they are far, far , from the norm or expectation. Exceptional people doing exceptional work will always exist. > your thesis had no value to begin with, because it’s mainly a teaching exercise And that’s the problem in your understanding. Thinking that a teaching exerci…

The value of the exercises you do in school (from sums to PhDs) is the learning you get from them. Good, because you need people to learn stuff, because the people that know stuff will be dead in a few years and you need to replace them.

Except, if machines can do the exercises up to the PhDs, you probably don't need those brains in the future, at least not as many as before. You might need only the brightest ones, and who knows for how long? The next ten years?

Re: "the very foundation of modern academia has been blown to bits"

#36

Post by tgv » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 9:53 AM UTC

yk wrote: post #12

The author is a mathematician and I think to a certain extend the tweet reflects the current panic among (some) mathematicians. So ~~second sentence~~ third paragraph the claim that somehow ai could right now write a phd in physics or sociology is something we don't observe (at the moment). What we observe is, that ai can find counter examples to well established conjectures in mathematics quite well, but the thing i…

> something we don't observe

That's just lack of observation. Which PhD candidate is going to say "Chat wrote it for me?" We know a lot of academic articles are AI written. And a very, very large part of the student essays. Unless intercepted, they'll end up in the thesis. And in sociology, the texts are so vague, that it becomes even harder to pick out slop.

There are good reasons to assume PhD students see an advantage to using AI, so they will.

Re: "the very foundation of modern academia has been blown to bits"

#37

Post by Chance-Device » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 9:54 AM UTC

tgv wrote: post #33

Chance-Device wrote: post #9

We’re at the point of learning that some things that used to matter no longer do, and some things we used to think mattered never did. It’s a going to be a shock to everyone, and this same phenomenon is happening everywhere, not just academia or software engineering. My bet: a lot of the things we used to do were habit, ceremony and gatekeeping much more than being necessities.

Is that your way of saying: I don't care? Because it sounds are if you're relativizing the problems to the level where you don't have to. You don't specify what you think "no longer matters." And so there's no way to judge what you think is the impact. > My bet: a lot of the things we used to do were habit, ceremony and gatekeeping much more than being necessities. Yeah, right. "I've got a calculator, so we no longer…

It’s a general sentiment about the way I think things are heading. You seem angry about it, that’s for you to figure out for yourself.

Re: "the very foundation of modern academia has been blown to bits"

#38

Post by strogonoff » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 9:56 AM UTC

eddythompson80 wrote: post #30

gcatalfamo wrote: post #18

I have a PhD and I completely support AI disrupting the field. If AI disrupts your field, the culprit is most likely not AI.

“If algorithmic targeting disrupts your society, the culprit is most likely not algorithmic targeting” Or replace AI/algorithmic targeting with tech in general and the disruption target with whatever it targets and you’d realize the problem with the sentence. Technological advances have disrupted plenty of fields. That doesn’t mean those fields were fundamentally flawed. Every arena has a certain degree of dysfunctio…

If tech is disrupting X, that’s a problem with X” tends to be said by people who have X comfortably sorted themselves (e.g., already have a PhD that counts as it’s from the pre-LLM days).

In the end it depends on whether one considers technological progress or human flourishing to be the end goal. Surprise—they are not always aligned, and sometimes are at odds with each other.

Re: "the very foundation of modern academia has been blown to bits"

#39

Post by tgv » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 9:57 AM UTC

haritha-j wrote: post #14

The largest output of a PhD has always been the training to the student, not the thesis itself, hence why we're called 'students'. Anyone claiming that a thesis can be generated by AI is missing the point. AI can also do everything an undergrad can do, we don't claim that undergrad education has been blown to bits. At best, we say we need better modes of evaluation, and perhaps that's true for PhDs as well. I submitt…

And how is the PhD student trained? By doing research and writing about it by him/herself.

> we don't claim that undergrad education has been blown to bits

But it has been. People pass CS classes without knowing how to write even a simple program. How do you think they'll fare?

As a meme said: you'd better start eating real healthy, because your future doctor will graduate using chatgpt.

Re: "the very foundation of modern academia has been blown to bits"

#40

Post by applfanboysbgon » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 9:58 AM UTC

Chance-Device wrote: post #34

thom wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re probably right, but I’d also bet some things that we’re about to sweep aside will turn out to have been necessities and we’ll find it very difficult to bring them back.

To be pedantic about it, if something is a necessity it can’t be done without by definition. So if you’re in that position whatever you’re talking about wasn’t a necessity. Is this like Socrates thinking that reading will make people lazy and forgetful?

> If something is a necessity it can’t be done without by definition

You fail at being pedantic. If you wanted to be pedantic about this, it would first be necessary to define what it is a necessity for. Are the things being swept aside a necessity for the universe to continue existing? No, definitely not. But perhaps they could be a necessity for the (academic) culture to prosper. Which do you think is more likely that the person you responded to meant, that they were talking about things being necessary for the universe to keep existing or things being necessary for our culture to flourish?

There is nothing worse than a half-assed pedant who can't even be sufficiently pedantic to make a point correctly. Really, that's closer to autism, not pedantry. There are inferred clauses when people speak, but you (choose to?) intentionally disregard them and interpret them in the wrong way, thereby arguing against things that weren't said. Even programs can infer unstated clauses by context (eg. can successfully infer from `var x = 2` that x is an int despite it not being said, without explicitly declaring `int x = 2`).