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Study mode

openai.com

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Re: Study mode

#401

Post by TeMPOraL »

hammyhavoc wrote: post #388
jychang wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is why wikipedia is not a good resource and nobody should use it. Also why google is not a good resource, anybody can make a website. You should only trust going into a library and reading stuff from microfilm. That's the only real way people should be learning. /s

Ah yes, the thing that told people to administer insulin to someone experiencing hypoglycemia (likely fatal BTW) is nothing like a library or Google search, because people blindly believe the output because of the breathless hype. See Dunning-Kruger.

See 4chan during the "crowd wisdom" hype era.

Re: Study mode

#402

Post by currymj »

SoftTalker wrote: post #13

Modern day Cliff's Notes. There is no way to learn without effort. I understand they are not claiming this, but many students want a silver bullet. There isn't one.

this basically functions as a switch you can press that says "more effort please". after every response it makes you solve a little comprehension check problem before moving on. you can try to weasel out of it but it does push back a bit.

unavoidably, people who don't want to work, won't push the "work harder" button.

Re: Study mode

#403

Post by ieuanking »

lbrito wrote: post #220
poemxo wrote: post #119

As a lifelong learner, experientially it feels like a big chunk of time spent studying is actually just searching. AI seems like a good tool to search through a large body of study material and make that part more efficient. The other chunk of time, to me anyway, seems to be creating a mental model of the subject matter, and when you study something well you have a strong grasp on the forces influencing cause and eff…

>big chunk of time spent studying is actually just searching. This is a good thing in many levels. Learning how to search is (was) a good skill to have. The process of searching itself also often leads to learning tangentially related but important things. I'm sorry for the next generations that won't have (much of) these skills.

yeah this is literally why I built -- app.ubik.studio -- searching is everything, and understanding what you are reading is more important than conversing with a chatbot. i cannot even imagine being a student in 2025, especially at 14 years old omg would be so hard not to just cheat on everything

Re: Study mode

#404

Post by insane_dreamer »

My favorite use of Claude (or similar) AI bot, other than coding, is to do deep dives into technical/science questions I'm interested in (mostly personal interests, unrelated to work). The ability to ask follow-up questions, get clarifications, travel down side paths, has helped me to grasp some concepts that I struggled with -- and offered more than I could just from just reading a few web pages.

Importantly, these were _not_ critical questions that I was incorporating into any decision-making, so I wasn't having to double-check the AI's answers, which would make it tedious; but it's a great tool for satisfying curiosity.

Re: Study mode

#406

Post by gopalv »

easton wrote: post #391
jacobedawson wrote: post #379

An underrated quality of LLMs as study partner is that you can ask "stupid" questions without fear of embarrassment. Adding in a mode that doesn't just dump an answer but works to take you through the material step-by-step is magical. A tireless, capable, well-versed assistant on call 24/7 is an autodidact's dream. I'm puzzled (but not surprised) by the standard HN resistance & skepticism. Learning something online 5…

> Certainly, and this technology won't help or hinder them any more than a good old fashioned textbook. Except that the textbook was probably QA’d by a human for accuracy (at least any intro college textbook, more specialized texts may not have). Matters less when you have background in the subject (which is why it’s often okay to use LLMs as a search replacement) but it’s nice not having a voice in the back of your…

> Except that the textbook was probably QA’d by a human for accuracy

Maybe it was not when printed in the first edition, but at least it was the same content shown to hundreds of people rather than something uniquely crafted for you.

The many eyes looking at it will catch it and course correct, while the LLM output does not get the benefit of the error correction algorithm because someone who knows the answer probably won't ask and check it.

I feel this way about reading maps vs following GPS navigation, the fact that Google asked me to take an exit here as a short-cut feels like it might trying to solve the Braess' paradox in real time.

I wonder if this route was made for me to avoid my car adding to some congestion somewhere and whether if that actually benefits me or just the people already stuck in that road.

Re: Study mode

#407

Post by purplerabbit »

Aachen wrote: post #328
theodorewiles wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-97652-6 This isn't study mode, it's a different AI tutor, but: "The median learning gains for students, relative to the pre-test baseline (M = 2.75, N = 316), in the AI-tutored group were over double those for students in the in-class active learning group."

I wonder how much this was a factor: "The occurrence of inaccurate “hallucinations” by the current [LLMs] poses a significant challenge for their use in education. [...] we enriched our prompts with comprehensive, step-by-step answers, guiding the AI tutor to deliver accurate and high-quality explanations (v) to students. As a result, 83% of students reported that the AI tutor’s explanations were as good as, or bette…

In case you find it interesting: I deployed an early version of a "lesson administering" bot deployed on a college campus that guides students through tutored activities of content curated by a professor in the "study mode" style -- that is, forcing them to think for themselves. We saw an immediate student performance gain on exams of about 1 stdev in the course. So with the right material and right prompting, things are looking promising.

Re: Study mode

#408

Post by Isamu »

jacobedawson wrote: post #379

An underrated quality of LLMs as study partner is that you can ask "stupid" questions without fear of embarrassment. Adding in a mode that doesn't just dump an answer but works to take you through the material step-by-step is magical. A tireless, capable, well-versed assistant on call 24/7 is an autodidact's dream. I'm puzzled (but not surprised) by the standard HN resistance & skepticism. Learning something online 5…

>I'm puzzled (but not surprised) by the standard HN resistance & skepticism

The good: it can objectively help you to zoom forward in areas where you don’t have a quick way forward.

The bad: it can objectively give you terrible advice.

It depends on how you sum that up on balance.

Example: I wanted a way forward to program a chrome extension which I had zero knowledge of. It helped in an amazing way.

Example: I am keep trying to use it in work situations where I have lots of context already. It performs better than nothing but often worse than nothing.

Mixed bag, that’s all. Nothing to argue about.

Re: Study mode

#409

Post by rs186 »

azinman2 wrote: post #213
mvieira38 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can't these founders see this happening, too? From the start OpenAI has been getting into more markets than just "LLM provider"

They originally claimed they wouldn’t as to not compete with their API users…

[citation needed]

Re: Study mode

#410

Post by adamlgerber »

Isamu wrote: post #408
jacobedawson wrote: post #379

An underrated quality of LLMs as study partner is that you can ask "stupid" questions without fear of embarrassment. Adding in a mode that doesn't just dump an answer but works to take you through the material step-by-step is magical. A tireless, capable, well-versed assistant on call 24/7 is an autodidact's dream. I'm puzzled (but not surprised) by the standard HN resistance & skepticism. Learning something online 5…

>I'm puzzled (but not surprised) by the standard HN resistance & skepticism The good: it can objectively help you to zoom forward in areas where you don’t have a quick way forward. The bad: it can objectively give you terrible advice. It depends on how you sum that up on balance. Example: I wanted a way forward to program a chrome extension which I had zero knowledge of. It helped in an amazing way. Example: I am kee…

mixed bags are our favorite thing to argue about
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