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Implications of AI to schools

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Re: Implications of AI to schools

#401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More important than knowing what 4x6 is, is understanding what multiplication is, why division is really the same operation, understanding commutative, associative, distributive properties of operations, etc. All of this comes as a result of repeated drilling of multiplication problem sets. Once this has been assimilated, you can move on to more abstract concepts that build on that foundation, and at that point sure…

How is knowing the commutative properties of operations more significant than being able to do basic arithmetic? I'd imagine millions if not billions of people have found basic math useful without ever learning what "commutative" even means.

More important in the sense of being able to understand higher abstractions, not necessarily more important in a strictly practical day-to-day sense.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#402
post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My son recently told me his teacher used him as an example for the class as someone who wrote a good piece himself. Teacher accused all the other students of using AI. He also told me that he had in fact used AI, but asked AI multiple times to simplify the text, and he had entered the simplified version. He liked the first version best, but was aware his teacher would consider it written by AI. Guess the teachers hav…

There's an easy fix. All course work must be completed in class without tools.

Exactly this. It really is this easy. You have the full class period to write an easy on the economic causes of the civil war .. or on gender roles in pride and prejudice, or on similarities and differences on morality from the stoic ideals to Christianity in the Roman Empire. Kind of like most of my 90’s era college experience.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#403
post #7

One of my students recently came to me with an interesting dilemma. His sister had written (without AI tools) an essay for another class, and her teacher told her that an "AI detection tool" had classified it as having been written by AI with "100% confidence". He was going to give her a zero on the assignment. Putting aside the ludicrous confidence score, the student's question was: how could his sister convince the…

Years ago in the 90's my brother wrote a short story for a fourth grade assignment and the teacher accused him of plagiarism because how could a 9 year old come up with such a vivid and elaborate story so he received a zero. I forget the details but my mother went to the school making a big stink and eventually had the zero changed to an A.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#404

Again, AI is not getting rid of degrees or learning or education. It's getting rid of cheap methods. Scantrons and bluebooks were always a way that made it cheap for institutions to produce results. Now those methods kinda seem silly, right? 500 person freshman lectures seem kinda absurd now, right? Teaching via adjuncts that had 3 days notice for the class and are paid nothing is kinda scammy, right? R1s professors…

Hurray! We’ve just made education only viable for the wealthy! Good job everyone, I can see this technology revolution is already living up to its promise of distributing wealth and power more evenly throughout society.

sama in 2023:

"We think that regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigate the risks of increasingly powerful models"

sama in 2024:

"using technology to create abundance--intelligence, energy, longevity, whatever--will not solve all problems and will not magically make everyone happy. but it is an unequivocally great thing to do, and expands our option space. to me, it feels like a moral imperative."

sama in 2025:

...proposals requiring AI developers to vet their systems before rolling them out would be 'disastrous' for the industry.

Nothing to see here.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#405
post #7

One of my students recently came to me with an interesting dilemma. His sister had written (without AI tools) an essay for another class, and her teacher told her that an "AI detection tool" had classified it as having been written by AI with "100% confidence". He was going to give her a zero on the assignment. Putting aside the ludicrous confidence score, the student's question was: how could his sister convince the…

It creates another layer of arbitrary gate-keeping. I experience this in interviews too. If I need to think about the low latency response I can give to derive djikstras algo verbatim, I get accused of reading notes on another monitor, not someone who studied for success.

It is beginning to become an awful situation where these companies are selling tools that undermine the student. Education is suppose to be the great equalizer in society, not another toggle or tool for oppression.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#406
post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My son recently told me his teacher used him as an example for the class as someone who wrote a good piece himself. Teacher accused all the other students of using AI. He also told me that he had in fact used AI, but asked AI multiple times to simplify the text, and he had entered the simplified version. He liked the first version best, but was aware his teacher would consider it written by AI. Guess the teachers hav…

Further, what's to stop anyone from pumping text into an LLM and then re-writing it's output to match their own style, etc.?

I wonder if doing this would actually be a step closer to learning (from not doing anything at all). To put it in your own style, you are forced to read the output and probably understand the basic concepts of what the LLM provides

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#407
post #379
post #7

One of my students recently came to me with an interesting dilemma. His sister had written (without AI tools) an essay for another class, and her teacher told her that an "AI detection tool" had classified it as having been written by AI with "100% confidence". He was going to give her a zero on the assignment. Putting aside the ludicrous confidence score, the student's question was: how could his sister convince the…

My son recently told me his teacher used him as an example for the class as someone who wrote a good piece himself. Teacher accused all the other students of using AI. He also told me that he had in fact used AI, but asked AI multiple times to simplify the text, and he had entered the simplified version. He liked the first version best, but was aware his teacher would consider it written by AI. Guess the teachers hav…

Giving a teacher judge/jury powers on administrative punishment jist creates a tyranny of the classroom.

Bart Simpson, we need you.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#408
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, a genuine doc will have a drafting process. You'll edit and change weak parts, etc. I guess you could use AI to guide this, at which point it's basically a research tool and grammar checker.

Depends how you work. I've rarely (never?) drafted anything and almost all of the first approach ended up in the final result. It would look pretty close to "typed in the AI answer with very minor modifications after". I'm not saying that was a great way to do it, but I definitely wouldn't want to be failed for that.

I don't mean formal multiple drafts. Even just editing bits, moving stuff around.

I guess some people can type out a 5,000 word assignment linearly from start to finish in 2 hours at 40wpm but that's both incredibly rare and easy to verify upon further investigation.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience with big tech has been the polar opposite - nobody has ever cared and I've never tried to hide it either. Which one was it if you don't mind me asking? I'm a drop out (didn't finish BSc) from a no name Northern European university and I've worked at or gotten offers from: - Meta - Amazon - Google - Microsoft - Uber - xAI + some unicorns that compete with FAANG+ locally. I didn't include some others that…

Once you have a relevant work history, a degree matters much less. It still does to some employers, however, for whom it's a simple filter on applicants: No degree? Resume into the bin.

It is true, and it is much easier to get that first relevant work experience when you have a big degree. Not impossible without one, just much harder.

Re: Implications of AI to schools

#410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an incredible abuse of power to intentionally mark innocent students' answers wrong when they're correct. Just to solve your own problem, that you may very well be responsible for. Knowing the way a lot of professors act, I'm not surprised, but it's always disheartening to see how many behave like petty tyrants who are happy to throw around their power over the young.

If you cheat, you should get a zero. How is this controversial. Since high school, the expectation is that you show your work. I remember my high school calculus teacher didn't even LOOK at the final answer - only the work. The nice thing was that if you made a trivial mistake, like adding 2 + 2 = 5, you got 95% of the credit. It worked out to be massively beneficial for students. The same thing continued in programm…

It's like with the justice system: if you have to choose between the risk of jailing an innocent and the risk letting a guilty person go free, you choose to let a guilty person go free. All the time.

Unless you're 100% sure that a student cheated, you don't punish them. And you don't ask them to prove they're innocent.

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