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The AI zombification of universities

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Re: The AI zombification of universities

#191

Post by aarjaneiro »

nradov wrote: post #145
materielle wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As recently as 2015 when I attended a middling CS program, we had in-person timed exams where we had to write down DSA implementations on a blank sheet of paper in Java. We were deducted points for trivial syntax mistakes. If these stories I keep hearing are true, then university programs have really taken a nose dive recently. This isn’t a “back in my day” thing, but within the past 5 years. The pace of the purporte…

I'm not sure I understand your comment. Surely you don't think that the details of a particular programming language's syntax are an appropriate criteria for grading an exam? That seems crazy.

Sounds fair to me so long as students were aware going into the test that syntax would be graded

Re: The AI zombification of universities

#192

Post by asdff »

kranke155 wrote: post #171
asdff wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a CS job at a FAANG in practice? Many hats. For example if you work at Netflix on content delivery, you are the modern version of someone involved in the boring logistics of theaters and plays. If you work at Google on search, you are the modern version of a librarian establishing ways to catalog information. If you work at say facebook, you are the modern version of a propagandist or even town crier perhaps.…

You're just confusing definitions. Capitalism as its commonly thought I would think just about what it says on the wikipedia page "Capitalism in its modern form emerged from agrarianism in England, as well as mercantilist practices by European countries between the 16th and 18th centuries. The Industrial Revolution of the 18th century established capitalism as a dominant mode of production, characterized by factory w…

You are conflating the modern form but I am considering its most base definition. From Merriam Webster:

"an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market"

This would satisfy the modern interpretation of capitalism as well as the ancient Phoenician traders engaging in real time free market price discovery when on trade voyages. Trade has been complex for a very long time. Consider the famous complaint tablet to Ea-nāṣir. These men were clearly capitalists little different than the commodity traders of today. They probably did not do their own fishing either, leaving that for the fishermen, focusing on copper and perhaps other commodities profiting off arbitrage and using that to pay for their survival.

Re: The AI zombification of universities

#193

Post by illiac786 »

jimbokun wrote: post #104
Lerc wrote: post #51

If people attend university for certification instead of education I think the battle is already lost. AI is an easy, but possibly high risk approach to gaining the certification without work, but the tried and tested approach is doing the bare minimum, cramming, then forgetting everything after graduation. If you penalize people who use AI but in the process have learned the required information you make the problem…

The purpose of the university has always been certification. “You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library." - Will Hunting

That is utter bs. Even if that quote would only be meant for insane geniuses, it would still be debatable.

It’s a movie, let’s go back to reality.

Re: The AI zombification of universities

#194

Post by stonlyb »

stonlyb wrote: post #70

I'm a current student, who also happens to be a full-time professional who is "all in on AI", and I think most are missing the true opportunities AI opens up for education. Because my student path is non-linear (vs just following a life script), I may be a bit weird / not the average student, but it's especially true for me that I'm very intentional about actually learning the things I sign up for classes to learn. M…

Another good AI use-case: cleaning up notes. What I've written in my scratch pad (https://motate.app/@sblue/linalg-exam-2-notes-755e73c1-8ddc-...) would be unusable as a reference at exam time.

But I was able to AI generate an audited and cleaned up 2 pager based strictly on my notes (https://github.com/stonly/public_share/blob/main/linalg_exam...)

Word of caution: A few versions ago of the models (and myself), I learned a hard lesson about generating reference guides. My physics exam performance paid the price. So this is not without risk as with anything AI, and your prompt mileage may vary.

Re: The AI zombification of universities

#195

Post by recursivecaveat »

bandrami wrote: post #41
pjc50 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI camera watching the students?

Faraday cage. EMP blast if that doesn't work.

When I TA'd a CS class (the students did their exams in-person but on a website with their laptops), we would solemnly tell them at the start of the exam that we would be monitoring all cell traffic in that room haha.

Re: The AI zombification of universities

#196

Post by kranke155 »

asdff wrote: post #192
kranke155 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're just confusing definitions. Capitalism as its commonly thought I would think just about what it says on the wikipedia page "Capitalism in its modern form emerged from agrarianism in England, as well as mercantilist practices by European countries between the 16th and 18th centuries. The Industrial Revolution of the 18th century established capitalism as a dominant mode of production, characterized by factory w…

You are conflating the modern form but I am considering its most base definition. From Merriam Webster: "an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market" This would satisfy the modern interpretation of capitalis…

Then what do you call the post industrial economic system

Re: The AI zombification of universities

#197

Post by tim333 »

>Take the infamous photograph of a UCLA student showing off a ChatGPT window ... at the most charitable level: the student is showing off how he used ChatGPT to cheat

There's a video of the student Andre Mai talking about it. He was a computational systems biology student who was encouraged to use AI in his research and was summarizing work from his machine learning lab. Video - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rswUgIfj1YU He seems pretty enthusiastic and unzombified.

It makes me skeptical of the authors "cancer on our culture that threatens to turn a generation of promising young Americans into a class of drooling morons" thesis.

Re: The AI zombification of universities

#198

Post by ponector »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #186
jimbokun wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of the university has always been certification. “You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library." - Will Hunting

Do let us know where we can find a chemistry lab or biology lab or the facilities used for various other engineering undergraduates in a public library.

How about nuclear physics? Every undergraduate has access to the fission materials, right?

Student doesn't need a specialized laboratory to learn things.

Re: The AI zombification of universities

#199

Post by realharo »

hansmayer wrote: post #77
chung8123 wrote: post #44

The college system is creating the zombie underclass with AI or without it. The amount of money colleges charge combined with the text book thinking shapes people into thinking there are steps to success, there are right answers, and "getting a job" is the right way to go. Colleges don't teach independent thinking and that is the exact thinking we need in the era of Youtube and AI. You don't need college to teach you…

> You don't need college to teach you how to learn text book items anymore and I think that is scary to some. a) This is about universities, not "college" b) The University teaches you critical thinking, not how to learn "textbook items". It's not vocational training for upper middle class. It's for building and developing citizens who can think critically.

With regards to b), what is the evidence that they actually deliver on this promise?

Re: The AI zombification of universities

#200

Post by yhgyy »

jimbokun wrote: post #119
paulpauper wrote: post #6

Universities will still act as gatekeepers of prestige and status. There is no AI alternative to the top-20 schools...I remember all the hype from 10-15 years ago about how online learning and "MIT courseware" would upend the universities or threaten credentialism, and nothing even close to that happened. As it turned out, the online version of MIT is not a substitute for the actual thing. Schools will adapt, as they…

That’s because the value of the university is the assessment, not the education itself. They are vouching for the intelligence, knowledge acquisition and work ethic of their graduates. If they lose that signal, they lose the ability to gate keep prestige and status.

lol no the prestige is associated with the fact those who went on to do great things, generally, also went to university. Even if they dropped out - they were still there. It’s this necessary ‘step’.

Therefore one must attend university to stand a chance of greatness.

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