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Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools

nytimes.com

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Re: Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools

#101

Post by lkey »

kolinko wrote: post #17
GlacierFox wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Current chatbots are better tutors than an average school teacher imho. Not saying that we should replace ones with the other ones, but I’d say from age 11-12 and up kids should be taught how to use AI well.

There is significant evidence against this, and very little for it beyond your 'honest opinion'.

A recent study showed just 2 out of tens of thousands of children in China improved their performance after beginning to use AI assistance.

People will take the shortcut in front of them, absent enforcement, and this is how it works in work and in school. Putting it onto any individual to 'use it well' is to misunderstand the system that is being constructed.

Re: Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools

#102

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #51
bugbull wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were certainly integral solving validators online when I took calculus in high school. At some point I gave up and just used that, because “the money is in web application development, I don’t need that calculus stuff”. Big regret. Edit: For reference, the regret came when I tried to do some RF related projects on the side. Those projects would likely have gone somewhere if I put some effort into even the basic…

I have never needed calculus since leaving university, nearly 40 year ago. If you're not in hard engineering, you probably won't (and if you are, you'll get to use all the computer assisting tools you want).

That's wishful thinking. I have been placed into professional situations where I needed calculus and, as I found out to my sorrow, all the CAS software packages in the world wouldn't have helped because I didn't have/remember enough math fundamentals. The CAS cannot provide any kind of answer if you don't know how to ask it the right questions.

Re: Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools

#103

Post by dayyan »

jhbadger wrote: post #92
wyre wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a rebuttal in the same way that saying the Vulcans in Star Trek use AI in their classrooms. Star Trek is a fictional story in a fictional universe that doesn't have to follow the laws and rules of science, society, reality, etc for the sake of telling a story that fans will want to follow.

I think you miss the point of Star Trek, it, even more than most SF, isn't "really" about the future fictional or otherwise -- it is using the tropes of SF to make commentary on our society through analogy. That being said, I'm not sure the OP recognizes that Vulcans aren't entirely presented positively on the show -- they are generally viewed as missing part of life with their lack of emotions.

Too many words.

It's cool and fiction is how we stress-test ideas before they become policy.

Re: Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools

#104

Post by krapp »

fercircularbuf wrote: post #98
krapp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Star Trek isn't real.

Star Trek is a plausible future I'd like to live in. It depends entirely on education, cultural values, and ethics. It's a future worth striving for, real or not.

Star Trek isn't plausible. Free energy isn't possible. Matter replication isn't possible. Teleportation and faster than light travel aren't possible. You can't simply out-think and out-pluck the laws of physics.

edit: not even with AI. Because I know there are people here who believe that AI will turn into a superintelligence so advanced that it will literally rewrite the laws of reality like the Eschaton from Charles Stross' Singularity Sky but that also isn't possible.

Moreover the pure egalitarian and voluntarist society of Star Trek isn't plausible. Humans aren't simply going to "evolve beyond our base desires," as Picard once put it. Even if we did have Star Trek style replicators, free energy, teleportation and FTL, and everyone had everything they could possibly want freely provided to them without cost or obligation, people would still want to have more than their neighbor to dominate and control, to be king of the mountain. They would still hate and kill.

You can't educate people out of human nature, and every manner of abomination can and will be justified by someone's ethics or cultural values.

Re: Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools

#105

Post by SoftTalker »

daymanstep wrote: post #80
SoftTalker wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never needed calculus since leaving university, nearly 40 year ago. If you're not in hard engineering, you probably won't (and if you are, you'll get to use all the computer assisting tools you want).

Math in general is something that you don't need to know until you need to know it, the problem with "just in time" learning is that if you don't already know it then you won't even be able to know when it's needed and which specific bits of math you need to learn for the specific situation you find yourself in. If you don't know math, you often won't be able to even realize when math is needed. There's a Steve Yegge…

Yeah, that's true, and I've been in that situation. Unfortunately the math I was missing was not calculus or anything I had exposure to in school, or any actual experience in practical application. You can't know everything.

Re: Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools

#106

Post by krapp »

dayyan wrote: post #103
jhbadger wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you miss the point of Star Trek, it, even more than most SF, isn't "really" about the future fictional or otherwise -- it is using the tropes of SF to make commentary on our society through analogy. That being said, I'm not sure the OP recognizes that Vulcans aren't entirely presented positively on the show -- they are generally viewed as missing part of life with their lack of emotions.

Too many words. It's cool and fiction is how we stress-test ideas before they become policy.

No one on Star Trek was "stress-testing" anything of the sort.

Stress-testing only works in reality, where the stresses are also real, or even in a simulation of reality.

Star Trek is neither, it's just fantasy. It doesn't test anything.

Re: Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools

#107

Post by tccole »

donatj wrote: post #69
bugbull wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were certainly integral solving validators online when I took calculus in high school. At some point I gave up and just used that, because “the money is in web application development, I don’t need that calculus stuff”. Big regret. Edit: For reference, the regret came when I tried to do some RF related projects on the side. Those projects would likely have gone somewhere if I put some effort into even the basic…

In 2004 I had a program on my TI-89 "Calculus Made Easy". It would do basically everything AND show your work. Someone gave it to me about 2/3's of the way through Calc 1. I truly regret having become dependent on it. I studied enough to know roughly what I was doing but not enough to not be dependent. I suspect learning with AI is the same sort of thing. You're learning, but you're not deep learning .

I read a quote that I think is analogous to AI usage. Knowledge cannot be transferred it can only be learned.

Re: Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools

#108

Post by dayyan »

krapp wrote: post #106
dayyan wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too many words. It's cool and fiction is how we stress-test ideas before they become policy.

No one on Star Trek was "stress-testing" anything of the sort. Stress-testing only works in reality, where the stresses are also real, or even in a simulation of reality. Star Trek is neither, it's just fantasy. It doesn't test anything.

[flagged]

Re: Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools

#110

Post by Spivak »

ElProlactin wrote: post #36

It's interesting to see the difference (so far) in comments about banning AI versus banning social media.

Because the "in schools" changes the calculus massively. You see a similar reaction to banning phones and personal computers while in school.

Kids can still access and use AI outside of school meaning the enforcement is entirely on the school and doesn't require massively a privacy invasion for adults by way of age verification. Schools already put children under (from an adult perspective at least) a pretty intense rules regime so this doesn't represent any kind of change—indeed it's probably better framed as a lack of a change from the status quo.

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