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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

#151

Post by Cthulhu_ »

asimovDev wrote: post #133
qsort wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm dumb as a rock and I don't have a PhD, but since ~1 year ago I started forcing myself to do small bits of coding and math manually. I'm not noticing a "cognitive decline" per se, but I do see I'm a lot "lazier", even stuff that used to be routine when I started coding now feel heavy.

I do a similar version of this, where if I notice a mistake in generated code, I fix it manually (or at least attempt to) instead of telling Claude to fix it.

Same, but also because it feels like it takes longer for an LLM to do it. I think that's something people who are into gathering personal metrics should do - measure how long it takes to type a prompt / have the LLM fix things vs just doing it yourself.

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

#152

Post by MyelinatedT »

asimovDev wrote: post #133
qsort wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm dumb as a rock and I don't have a PhD, but since ~1 year ago I started forcing myself to do small bits of coding and math manually. I'm not noticing a "cognitive decline" per se, but I do see I'm a lot "lazier", even stuff that used to be routine when I started coding now feel heavy.

I do a similar version of this, where if I notice a mistake in generated code, I fix it manually (or at least attempt to) instead of telling Claude to fix it.

This is the right balance for me as well.

I use an agent to generate a first-pass attempt, and then (deadlines willing), I manually read every line at least once so I understand what the code actually does.

Then I manually fix the inevitable slop that is mixed in with the good stuff, and only once the code is up to my personal standards do I send it.

This probably reduces my “AI performance boost” to 30-50% instead of the huge gains reported by others. But I retain the ability to reason about the codebase and use AI much more precisely when I’m trying to troubleshoot production outages or subtle bugs — something I notice the rest of my team struggles with, since adopting “agentic workflows” everywhere.

I think actively working to retain some cognitive flexibility and “muscle memory” around coding tasks is going to be rather advantageous in the long run.

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

#153

Post by thedevilslawyer »

xadhominemx wrote: post #95
thedevilslawyer wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're incredibly more productive. LLMs are amplifiers, so where they'd have branched and tried out N things, they can easily try 5N pathways of RnD. LLMs are extending the frontiers of science fast -- math -> phy -> chem -> bio in that order.

To me it is crazy that you are being downvoted. My experience in academia was that an incredible amount of time was devoted to data cleansing analysis, coding, etc., which were completely non-core to the actual underlying academic pursuit.

There's an unnecessary feeling of fear that permeates any factual conversation on LLM's impact on science and engineering. You can just view the practitioner over the shoulder and see all the things they're able to do in a minute that would have taken days.

The downvotes are just a sign of the times. It's also something to observe and think about..

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

#154

Post by repelsteeltje »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #115
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…

At this rate humans will become avatars remotely controlled by LLMs. Ironic conclusion of the consciousness debate.

Distopian, what an insightful frame

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

#155

Post by frollogaston »

vladgur wrote: post #38

In unrelated news "More than 600 University of California faculty members, led by mathematicians at UC Berkeley, are calling on the system to reinstate standardized testing requirements for science, technology, engineering and mathematics applicants, saying that six years of test-free admissions has not reliably assessed readiness and professors are often teaching middle school math to incoming students." https://arc…

Hard to find the actual letter: https://ucstudentsuccess.org

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

#156

Post by Cthulhu_ »

trismus wrote: post #136
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…

On the contrary, with the amount of times I went to ask for help and was failed pedagogically, plus not being able to afford tutoring like my peers had, I think access to an LLM would have genuinely boosted my grades. I still did well, but I had gaps for which there was no help outside of the internet available.

The risk or difference is that tutoring helped people learn which they can use to do the work, whereas with only one or two different words an LLM will do the work (that proves you have learned) for you. A tutor has limits, but an LLM needs to be asked to set limits. And especially younger people are less likely to "punish themselves" like that.

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

#157

Post by genxy »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #115
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…

At this rate humans will become avatars remotely controlled by LLMs. Ironic conclusion of the consciousness debate.

We are already remote sensors and manipulators for the corporate and economic structures we operate under. You can't see it, but we are ants in a superorganism.

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

#158

Post by f311a »

adamcharnock wrote: post #112
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…

I've been wondering if there would be a benefit to inverting how we teach subjects now. Previously we would teach from the bottom, and build up. Semi-colon goes here, curly brace goes there, and then build up to architecture, systems, etc. But this doesn't seem to make sense when someone comes to a topic with an LLM in-hand. They need to know high-level techniques, architecture, best practice, etc. As they pursue the…

You can ask LLMs about high-level techniques, and their answers will usually be good enough. What you can't get from LLMs is the taste and judgment, which you can only obtain by having a strong CS base and coding manually for years.

High-level techniques were never a problem. You could Google tens of articles on this topic. They are useless too, it's like learning how to drive a racing bicycle from reading a book. Sure, you will know a lot about nuances, but you will fail miserably when it comes to a real race.

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

#159

Post by Cthulhu_ »

ernst_klim wrote: post #96
vineyardmike wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I think it's less like a cigarette and more like the car. We're not going back. Americans are famously less healthy the more car dependent they are, and now people walk/run as an explicit task to be healthy. People will start going to a "thinking" gym, or engaging in additional manual mental activities for sport, like we do with chess today.

Or when the Internet came and made memory kinda obsolete. Why remember facts if you can simply index them and then lookup on demand. But now we delegate thinking itself, so I wonder what is left.

This is an age-old argument actually, the same one was raised when the printing press was invented and reading became a more generally available skill.

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

#160

Post by ListeningPie »

The exams need to change. Now that we have LLMs the value a human can bring to a task has changed and it’s that new value that has to be tested.

It’s like testing your drawing ability in a photography class. The difference is that now nearly have subject and testing method we have has become obsolete. Drawings courses still exist as will traditional courses, but the main stream has changed and exams and schools need to adapt.

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