AI boosted homework scores, then exam scores dropped: study

Post by throwyawayyyy » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 10:37 PM UTC

theevilsharpie wrote: post #99

rtikulit wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stand-alone bottom-up observations (even if valid) obscure the fundamental problem that AI (or "AI" if you like) is inducing systemic change across human civilization. If cohorts are graduating into the workforce with decreasing stand-alone skills, that implies the economic value-add of labour is shifting to AI, which implies broadly falling standards of living, falling political power, and an ongoing transfer of pow…

> Stand-alone bottom-up observations (even if valid) obscure the fundamental problem that AI (or "AI" if you like) is inducing systemic change across human civilization. Students have been cheating and taking shortcuts on their work long before the current generation of AI tools existed (and probably for as long as graded exams have existed). Somehow, civilization has managed to survive.

Post by throwyawayyyy » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 10:42 PM UTC

kgwgk wrote: post #131

jimmar wrote: post #13

In my professional career, my employers give me a lot more assignments than exams.

Your employers want those assignments done. That’s why they pay you. School assignments belong in the trash can and you pay for someone to look at them before throwing them away.

Post by doctorwho42 » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 10:45 PM UTC

dan_ggggg wrote: post #252

doctorwho42 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All at the cost of ... {List of negatives regarding the construction and powering of AI data centers }

The social costs are worse.

Post by oblio » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 10:49 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #257

oblio wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm way beyond homework, but I do appreciate the compliment on seeming young! I meant: what's going to stop the average lazy student from ignoring whatever harness the university recommends and instead use an unrestricted LLM, thus learning nothing?

> what's going to stop the average lazy student from ignoring whatever harness the university recommends and instead use an unrestricted LLM, thus learning nothing? Nothing until they start failing exams and maybe seeing the error of their ways. My suggestions wasn't for you, it was for the smart student who wants to use AI to enhance their learning but not have it do all the work. But cheating isn't new. People have…

Post by sebastiennight » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 10:56 PM UTC

jonahx wrote: post #225

kzz102 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so clear that AI is an amplifier.. The paper has some fascinating analysis on this topic: "At the other end of the distribution, AI students who spend more than 65 minutes on their homework receive homework and exam scores similar to those of non-AI students, suggesting that these students do not use generative AI for homework assignments. However, this group consists entirely of students who adopted generat…

Depends who's using it. Like many tools the force multiplier depends on the operator. I'm confident it's an amplifier for people who know how learning works and already do a lot of it, successfully. However the level of "learning fluency" I'm talking about isn't reached for many until late college or grad school, and sometimes not at all. So I'm not surprised by the quoted results for 12-18 year olds.