I'd rather read the prompt • Hacker News Board

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#361

Post by chairmansteve » Mon, May 05, 2025, 1:32 AM UTC

sn9 wrote: post #221

> I should hope that the purpose of a class writing exercise is not to create an artifact of text but force the student to think; a language model produces the former, not the latter. It's been incredibly blackpilling seeing how many intelligent professionals and academics don't understand this, especially in education and academia. They see work as the mere production of output, without ever thinking about how that…

There were 40,000 people in Kenya writing papers for American students before LLMs came along.

I myself went to college to get the meal ticket, not to learn. But since the system was entirely exam based, I was forced to learn.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#362

Post by jama211 » Mon, May 05, 2025, 1:32 AM UTC

QuadmasterXLII wrote: post #331

Crucially: if you just send me the prompt, and for some reason I would rather have read the model output, I can just paste the prompt into the model. However, theres no way to go the other way

Then just make the assignment “write me a prompt for…” rather than “regurgitate info for…”

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#363

Post by qingcharles » Mon, May 05, 2025, 1:33 AM UTC

fallinditch wrote: post #289

sn9 wrote: post #221

> I should hope that the purpose of a class writing exercise is not to create an artifact of text but force the student to think; a language model produces the former, not the latter. It's been incredibly blackpilling seeing how many intelligent professionals and academics don't understand this, especially in education and academia. They see work as the mere production of output, without ever thinking about how that…

It's been obvious since ChatGPT blew up in early 2023 that educators had to rethink how they educate. I agree that this situation that the author outlines is unsatisfactory but it's mostly the fault of the education system (and by extension the post author). With a class writing exercise like the author describes, of course the students are going to use an LLM, they would be stupid not to if their classmates are usin…

I'll leave this link here in case you feel like being depressed today:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1hun3e4/my_little_...

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#364

Post by mschuster91 » Mon, May 05, 2025, 1:34 AM UTC

palata wrote: post #275

soerxpso wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I should hope that the purpose of a class writing exercise is not to create an artifact of text but force the student to think I'm there for the degree. If I wanted to learn and engage with material, I could save $60,000 and do that online for free, probably more efficiently. The purpose of a class writing exercise is to get the university to give me the degree, which I cannot do by actually learning the material (…

> I'm there for the degree. If I wanted to learn and engage with material, I could save $60,000 I would argue that if it costs $60,000, both your education system and the recruitment in those companies that require this degree are broken. It's not the case in all countries though. Not that it is your fault, just stating the obvious.

> I would argue that if it costs $60,000, both your education system and the recruitment in those companies that require this degree are broken.

Meh, academic degrees don't come for free, someone has to pay for universities, staff and other expenses. In the US it's everyone for themselves by student loans that can't be discharged in bankruptcies, in Europe it's the tax payers.

The problem is, the ones profiting from the gatekeeping (aka employers) aren't the ones paying for it in either system. If employers had to pay, say, 10.000$ for each job listing that requires an academic degree without an actual valid reason, guess how fast that incentive would lead to employers not requiring academic degrees for paper-pusher bullshit jobs.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#365

Post by jama211 » Mon, May 05, 2025, 1:38 AM UTC

This is a lot of words of complaining instead of just changing the assignment specification to ask students to provide a prompt that they’d use, instead of asking them to regurgitate information. You get what you ask for mate, I don’t understand what’s so hard about this.

If your assignment can be easily performed by an LLM, it’s a bad assignment. Teachers are just now finding out the hard way that these assignments always sucked and were always about regurgitating information pointlessly and weren’t helpful tools for learning lol. I did heaps of these assignments before the existence of LLMs, and I can assure you that the busywork was mostly a waste of time back then too.

People using LLMs is just proof they don’t respect your assignment - and you know what, if one person doesn’t respect your assignment, they’re probably wrong. But if 90% of people don’t respect your assignment? Maybe you should consider whether the assignment is the problem. It’s not rocket science.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#366

Post by blintz » Mon, May 05, 2025, 1:39 AM UTC

Call it the iron law of LLMs:

"No worthy use of an LLM involves other human beings reading its output."

If you use a model to generate code, let it be code nobody has to read: one-off scripts, demos, etc. If you want an LLM to prove a theorem, have it generate some Coq and then verify the proof mechanically. If you ask a model to write you a poem, enjoy the poem, and then graciously erase it.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#367

Post by bigstrat2003 » Mon, May 05, 2025, 1:40 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #312

ozim wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always get triggered when people argue against „rote memorization” - but it also is technique that builds up knowledge, skills and experience. Even if one won’t need that specific know how after exams - just realization how much one can memorize and trying out some approaches to optimize it is where people grow/learn.

Memorizing things is somewhat helpful but being able to parrot back answers to questions is not at all the same thing as knowledge, skills, or experience. Memorizing a bunch of facts is an adequate way to fool someone into thinking you have those things. Testing for memorized facts is a good way to misidentify useful skills.

And yet there is still value in facts. For example, learning the ideal gas law in high school has enabled me to understand in my adult life how gases will react when compressed or when released. Yet the ideal gas law is a simple fact that you can memorize in minutes. In this case, memorizing that small fact about physics enabled me to apply it to gain understanding of other situations.

I believe that the same holds true for other facts one might memorize. Yes, the fact may seem like meaningless trivia (and might even be so at times), but in the right situation knowing that fact can help with understanding. You can certainly spend too much time on memorization of facts, but that doesn't mean it has no place either.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#368

Post by jama211 » Mon, May 05, 2025, 1:41 AM UTC

Terr_ wrote: post #337

> I'd rather read the prompt Yeah, to recycle a comment [0] from a few months back: > Yeah, one of their most "effective" uses is to counterfeit signals that we have relied on--wisely or not--to estimate deeper practical truths. Stuff like "did this person invest some time into this" or "does this person have knowledge of a field" or "can they even think straight." [...]we might have to cope by saying stuff like: "Fu…

Not to mention that if the teacher would rather read the prompt… then ask for the prompt then? This genuinely reads to me like “I asked for an apple and got an apple instead of an orange, hurr durr I’m so annoyed”.

Asking students for regurgitated info and then being annoyed because they supplied generic regurgitated info is somewhat telling an attitude no?

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#369

Post by code_biologist » Mon, May 05, 2025, 1:45 AM UTC

jameshart wrote: post #329

sn9 wrote: post #221

> I should hope that the purpose of a class writing exercise is not to create an artifact of text but force the student to think; a language model produces the former, not the latter. It's been incredibly blackpilling seeing how many intelligent professionals and academics don't understand this, especially in education and academia. They see work as the mere production of output, without ever thinking about how that…

I’ve come across this analogy that I think works well: Using an LLM to do schoolwork is like taking a forklift to the gym. If all we were interested in was moving the weights around, you’d be right to use a tool to help you. But we’re doing this work for the effect it will have on you . The reason a teacher asks you a question is not because they don’t know the answer.

Using an LLM to do schoolwork is like taking a forklift to a gym where you're told the goal is to be healthy and strong, but they can't really stop you from using a forklift, and jobs and compensation are given out according to how much you lifted irrespective of forklift use.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#370

Post by bigstrat2003 » Mon, May 05, 2025, 1:45 AM UTC

staunton wrote: post #134

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots and lots of developers can't program at all. As in literally - can't write a simple function like "fizzbuzz" even if you let them use reference documentation. Many don't even know what a "function" even is. (Yes, these are people with developer jobs, often at "serious" companies.)

I've never met someone like that and don't believe the claim. Maybe you mean people who are bad at interviews? Or people whose job isn't actually programming? Or maybe "lots" means "at least one"? Or maybe they can strictly speaking do fizzbuzz, but are "in any case bad programmers"? If your claim is true, what do these people do all day (or, let's say, did before LLMs were a thing...)?

I've definitely worked with a person who struggled to write if statements (let alone anything more complex). This was just one guy, so I wouldn't say "lots and lots" like the other poster did, but they do exist.