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"AI", students, and epistemic crisis

miniver.blogspot.com

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Re: "AI", students, and epistemic crisis

#41

Post by weinzierl »

sieste wrote: post #23

Like probably many people here I still remember having to find facts in books in libraries, before the internet made this skill mostly redundant. Then, as a student I remember having to put together facts from various (internet) sources into a coherent narrative. Now chatbots can just generate text and that skill seems less valuable. I use both the internet and GenAI extensively now. But I feel that having gone throu…

I also lived through these phases and it makes me feel very, very much the same.

On the other hand I cannot not help thinking that this is similar to the arguments brought forward when the internet was new. How could correctness and plausibility be established if you don't have established trustworthy institutions, authors and editors behind everything? And yet it turned out mostly fine. Wikipedia is alive, despite its deficiencies, Encyclopedia Britannica not so much.

So, is it only old people's fear?

Re: "AI", students, and epistemic crisis

#43

Post by nebulous1 »

Kiro wrote: post #39

Am I the only one who almost never experience any hallucinations when talking to ChatGPT? I have to really push it into a corner with trick questions and conflicting instructions about obscure topics in order to trigger hallucinations. That it would just come up with random false facts about something as common and "basic" as the history of the Greek language sounds like a made-up issue.

Well, I can't say that you're the only one, but I can say that I don't even interact with it that frequently and I've had numerous instances of it giving me false information. Enough times that I'm surprised to see you say otherwise.

Re: "AI", students, and epistemic crisis

#44

Post by auggierose »

hyperhopper wrote: post #37
auggierose wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, much of the same criticism applies to both.

Wikipedia is generally right and you can check it's sources. Also everything there was written by a human. LLMs are often wrong and you cannot check their sources. Also since it is generated you can trick it into spitting out falsehoods intentionally. They are not even close.

You can also check the sources of LLMs, just ask them for it, and then check that. An LLM is simply more flexible and more powerful than Wikipedia, and thus you have to be more cautious with regards to its results.

"Generally right" is not the same as "reliably right", and therefore if you really need to rely on a fact for something important, I would trust neither Wikipedia nor LLMs.

Re: "AI", students, and epistemic crisis

#45

Post by atoav »

The problem with not writing yourself isn't that people didn't do the writing themselves, the problem is that they didn't do the thinking themselves that is a prerequisite for writing.

Now of course like any tool this can be used without falling into that trap, but people are lazy and the truth is that if you don't absolutely have to do it yourself most people won't.

Re: "AI", students, and epistemic crisis

#48

Post by nebulous1 »

gitfan86 wrote: post #42

Perplexity links to sources. All he has to do was show the student the same search on perplexity. I do feel sorry for professors like this that cannot adapt to technology changes at the rate they are happening

Why would the teacher (this is almost certainly not third level education we're talking about here) use a different AI when they already have primary sources? Your suggestion makes no sense.

Re: "AI", students, and epistemic crisis

#49

Post by jacooper »

hyperhopper wrote: post #37
auggierose wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, much of the same criticism applies to both.

Wikipedia is generally right and you can check it's sources. Also everything there was written by a human. LLMs are often wrong and you cannot check their sources. Also since it is generated you can trick it into spitting out falsehoods intentionally. They are not even close.

> LLMs are often wrong and you cannot check their sources.

Depends on which LLM you are using, perplexity and copilot both cite their sources.

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