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Universities would prefer no AI

hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com

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Re: Universities would prefer no AI

#61

Post by ang_cire »

summarybot wrote: post #51
goda90 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People also thought aqueducts were the best way to move water for thousands of years. They still do because they still are? I'm hard pressed to think of a better way to move water than creating a gently sloped channel(this includes any pipelines that don't use pumps, by the way) for it to follow from where it is to where you need it. Many places that don't have sufficient local groundwater are still supplied by aqu…

And how many aqueducts lead to your dwelling today?

I'm fairly certain that you do in fact have a duct that moves aqua (water) into your house, bro.

And gravity-feed systems are the best way to move large amounts of water. That's even how nature works, and nature moves much more water than humans do.

Re: Universities would prefer no AI

#62

Post by goda90 »

summarybot wrote: post #51
goda90 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People also thought aqueducts were the best way to move water for thousands of years. They still do because they still are? I'm hard pressed to think of a better way to move water than creating a gently sloped channel(this includes any pipelines that don't use pumps, by the way) for it to follow from where it is to where you need it. Many places that don't have sufficient local groundwater are still supplied by aqu…

And how many aqueducts lead to your dwelling today?

I live someplace with abundant groundwater so my water comes from a well less than a mile away. But millions of people have aqueducts leading to their city providing a significant portion of their water supply.

Re: Universities would prefer no AI

#63

Post by ang_cire »

d_silin wrote: post #60
ang_cire wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why the real answer to this is actually an older paradigm: apprenticeship. Companies should be doing their own training for their jobs, and university can be freed up to actually be about intellectual pursuit rather than economic pursuit. It was companies themselves who created this issue anyways, by demanding degrees for every damn job, regardless of whether a degree could prepare you in the first place, an…

That's a cost, though. And in today's world, companies rather burn millions on AI than train their own labour.

Yes, but that's not something universities can solve.

Universities predate capitalism (despite the author's absurd assertion that they were founded to serve the interests of businesses), and will exist after it, if any humans survive it.

Re: Universities would prefer no AI

#64

Post by ang_cire »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #57

Universities need to host their own AI, and force students to use it. you then make sure it behaves and doesn't let them cheat too much. guide them to answers, don't just spit out code like Claude is want to do

wont to do*

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wont

Re: Universities would prefer no AI

#65

Post by ang_cire »

sabot90260 wrote: post #44

The $340M for 400 GPUs over two years next to 100,000 in 122 days is the whole argument in one line.

That is either a logistics issue, or a mismatch in what is being purchased. It doesn't specify that they're the same GPUs. Given the way the author structures the article, I'm suspicious that this is a meaningful or even truthful metric.

Re: Universities would prefer no AI

#66

Post by ang_cire »

skywhopper wrote: post #30

This author has a ton of axes to grind and a poor grasp of computing history or how industry works. Pretending like it’s strange or even bad that industrial datacenter builders with tens of billions of leveraged capital can outbuild the GPU capacity of chronically underfunded grant dependent universities whose mission is not to create industrial scale compute resources is like complaining local technical school auto-…

Yep, there were multiple dog whistles in this article, including framing the very intentional attack on science funding by Trump, as a tool for political leverage against universities, as being just some kind of benign priority shift.

Re: Universities would prefer no AI

#67

Post by NopIdoN »

d_silin wrote: post #29
_aavaa_ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a bad analogy, you still have to put all the effort yourself at the gym while on steroids. Perhaps LLMs are a forklift.

Ha! Steroids give you muscle mass without lifting, believe it or not. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199607043350101 Of course, side effects are a different story.

but I can deal with the side effects using my free strength!

Re: Universities would prefer no AI

#68

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

ang_cire wrote: post #58
d_silin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self-directed studying doesn't scale. To produce thousands of new graduates per year you need industrial-scale methods - schools and colleges.

Which is why the real answer to this is actually an older paradigm: apprenticeship. Companies should be doing their own training for their jobs, and university can be freed up to actually be about intellectual pursuit rather than economic pursuit. It was companies themselves who created this issue anyways, by demanding degrees for every damn job, regardless of whether a degree could prepare you in the first place, an…

> Companies should be doing their own training for their jobs, and university can be freed up to actually be about intellectual pursuit rather than economic pursuit.

This would be great of course, but the reason that 'what actually happens' is so different than 'what should happen' are the usual economic incentives. How can we change the financial calculations to separate formal education from job training in a way that drives the ship in the better direction.

One way could be to regulate degree requirements to only jobs that really require them like engineering, nursing, etc. Another might be allow student loan bankruptcy if certain criteria are met such such as x number of years below y income.

Re: Universities would prefer no AI

#69

Post by logicchains »

jschveibinz wrote: post #52

The problem can be fixed: adjust or realign the business model and incentives around the needs of the stakeholders. - Students want a credential because business and society demands a credential - Universities want income to support their missions of research, education and other "motives" - Professors want to do research, and they don't really want to teach (in general) - AI is a resource for learning, assessment an…

Go back to the old approach where degrees/credentials are conferred based on discussion/debate with the professors and an on-paper exam at end of year, with no attendance or classes required. Then just have the professors provide a syllabus and potential students work through it themselves, asking an AI to explain anything that's unclear. Professors can get their funding from the government and industry; in future it won't make sense for students to pay tens of thousands of dollars a year to get at most an hour of daily one-on-one time with professors, when for a fraction of that cost they could be getting 24/7 tutoring/discussion from an LLM that's at least as knowledgeable.

Someone will ask, what about people who are incapable of motivating themselves to study? Well they'd feel a lot more motivation to study if it meant saving tens of thousands of dollars. As for people completely incapable of independent learning, they'd likely have little employability in the future in any case, because people would rather hire an AI than that kind of person.

Re: Universities would prefer no AI

#70

Post by summarybot »

ang_cire wrote: post #61
summarybot wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how many aqueducts lead to your dwelling today?

I'm fairly certain that you do in fact have a duct that moves aqua (water) into your house, bro. And gravity-feed systems are the best way to move large amounts of water. That's even how nature works, and nature moves much more water than humans do.

You miss the point entirely little bro. Modern water-moving infrastructure is qualitatively different than two thousand years ago. Why would modern education be exempt from a similar transformation?
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