161–170 of 231 posts
the screenshot with formulas and then, in the middle of it all, "wait let me be more careful" had me laughing to myself.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And yet a Top 10 school like University of Chicago has apparently not been able to fix that problem. That's telling in and of itself.
AI camera watching the students?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then it becomes, teach what? "To use AI", yes, and, then, to do what? Use it how? To make some software? Why? You are already taking software engineering classes to learn to make software. To write something? Why? You are already taking classes that ask you write things yourself. An AI class, to me at least, is akin to taking a class about how to pay someone to write your essay for you. And if we are talking about th…
Regardless of VC subsidies, the cost of compute always trends down over time. Whether you like it or not, LLMs will be a pervasive part of everyone's life forever (or at least until a better replacement comes along).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the signal to corporations disappears the wage premium to a college education disappears and the students disappear along with the tuition paying the professors’ salaries.
Maybe? Elite colleges have been around a lot longer than the professional credentialism of the last 20 years, no?
Otherwise what signal does “prominent family and graduated from Harvard” have over just “prominent family”?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You need a job to live - under the current economic system. a lot of the critiques of capitalism lead you straight into ai, and most economic critiques of AI are critiques of capitalism as it exists now .
You've needed a job to live for all of human history going back to whatever ancestor you like. That job is called survival. All modern life is doing is delegating that effort across many people such as to benefit from economies of scale. I don't need to fish for my sustenance because someone else is doing the fishing. I contribute in some other way that gives me credits to access the fishing take. People act like cap…
Capitalism is not a new evil, you're absolutely right. It's just the system that, according to our current framework, came after feudalism, which came after something else.
the point is that actually seeing the changes in systems as consequences of massive technological change is likely directionally correct and it is not clear whether current capitalist logic survives the AI era.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regardless of VC subsidies, the cost of compute always trends down over time. Whether you like it or not, LLMs will be a pervasive part of everyone's life forever (or at least until a better replacement comes along).
Cost of compute trending down is usually lost as the resulting software bloat that fills the empty space like a gas. We already see this with LLMs. Models get bigger and bigger in an arms race.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK but why? That will reward students who are good at taking exams, which has very little relevance to being a competent worker or well-rounded citizen or innovative leader or anything else that we need.
Since when has university ever been about "being a competent worker or well-rounded citizen or innovative leader"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You've needed a job to live for all of human history going back to whatever ancestor you like. That job is called survival. All modern life is doing is delegating that effort across many people such as to benefit from economies of scale. I don't need to fish for my sustenance because someone else is doing the fishing. I contribute in some other way that gives me credits to access the fishing take. People act like cap…
Survival didn't involve a CS job at FAANG until very recently. Capitalism is not a new evil, you're absolutely right. It's just the system that, according to our current framework, came after feudalism, which came after something else. the point is that actually seeing the changes in systems as consequences of massive technological change is likely directionally correct and it is not clear whether current capitalist…
The actual tasks being done have always been done even if the technologies used to do the work have changed and the work itself looks a little different. Our base needs have not changed. We are the same apes bound by dopamine. The functionality we require is pretty old. There is probably little we experience that is truly "new" compared to what one might experience in a classical civilization.
Capitalism is far more ancient than feudalism. Phoenicians were famous capitalists, likewise most any group of people involved in trade. Trade and accumulation of capital representing labor is ancient.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cost of compute trending down is usually lost as the resulting software bloat that fills the empty space like a gas. We already see this with LLMs. Models get bigger and bigger in an arms race.
OK so the frontier models will be capable of doing even more, but the simple stuff they can do today will get much cheaper.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This particular battle for learning was lost a long time ago. If university stopped providing an earnings boost from attending, 90% of students would quit tomorrow. It doesn’t help that a lot of desirable fields are comically out of date at the academic instructional level anyway. Would you honestly tell an aspiring software engineer that your typical computer science degree will teach them much about wielding comput…
Anyone who thinks that a Computer Science degree is supposed to prepare them for a job as a Software Engineer has completely missed the point. It's like getting a Physics degree for a job as a Mechanical Engineer. There is some overlap but a huge difference in focus on theoretical versus practical topics.
You can argue about whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, but the ship sailed long ago. CS undergrad degrees are about training software engineers, not about training computer scientists.