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I'd rather read the prompt

claytonwramsey.com

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Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#511

Post by Balgair »

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.

I think we have to hold off a bit on the whole thing here.

Look, we have no idea what the feedback is like that this grad student gives, what the class sizes are like, what the cadence is, what the grade percentages are, etc. All we know is that Clayton Ramsey is a grad student at Rice in the robotics department and that he wrote a hot take here.

For me, the most important thing is if this grader is bothering to really grade at all. I think we've all had a harried grad student just dash off a few red lines on the week one HW about a week before the final exam. That's not a 2 way street, and if the feedback isn't as in-depth as he wants the work to be, well, he shouldn't be surprised. He can't be expecting students to put in the time unilaterally. But, we don't know any of that really.

Personally, I think that before the decade is out, we're not going to be talking about this at all. Because the students will be adept enough at using the LLMs to make it look like their own writing anyways. This is a problem that experience will solve for them.

And also, I think that the days of the massive lectures and essays are pretty much cooked. That 'cheap' model of education can't survive this LLM revolution. We obviously have to change what the heck higher education is trying to do.

My take is that we're going to go to smaller class sizes like those at St. John's or Oxbridge. Under 10 people, you have to have done the reading or look like a fool, all with a PhD in the subject as a guide/teacher. Large classes weren't cutting it for decades (ask any Frat about their test banks), and now the veil is just ripped off.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#512

Post by Seattle3503 »

jama211 wrote: post #371
robertlagrant wrote: post #18

Time to go back to writing essays in exams, live, on paper.

Or how about we actually collectively learn a lesson from this - if your assignments just ask people to generically regurgitate info, don’t be surprised that 90% of students lose interest and see it for what it is, pointless busywork. I genuinely believe I had many excellent learning experiences at university, and I can assure you none of them were the times I had to re-write course info and hand it back to them in o…

I had a lot of great experiences at university too, and was disheartened to see others thought those same things were all pointless busywork.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#513

Post by lqr »

For math and writing, we still have in-class exams as an LLM-free evaluation tool.

I wish there was some way to do the same for programming. Imagine a classroom full of machines with no internet connection, just a compiler and some offline HTML/PDF documentation of languages and libraries.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#514

Post by rocqua »

Is the author forgetting a baby in the bathwater he is throwing out? Especially on coding. He points out that vibe coding is bad, and then concluding that any program written through the use of an AI is bad.

For example if you already have a theory of your code, and you want to make some stuff that is verbose but trivial. It is just more efficient to explain the theory to an LLM and extract the code. I do like the idea of storing the underlying prompt in a comment.

Same for writing. If you truly copy paste output, it's obviously bad. But if you workshop a paragraph 5 or 6 times that can really get you unstuck.

Even the euler angles example. That output would be a good starting point for an investigation.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#515

Post by lmm »

godelski wrote: post #502
lmm wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can't fix the problem by making better choices as individuals, and exhorting people to do so saps energy and distracts. The system interprets integrity as damage and routes around it.

> We can't fix the problem by making better choices as individuals That's wildly inaccurate. Your logic necessitates that "the system" is not composed of individuals. The problem itself was created through individual actions...

The problem was created by individuals deliberately acting collectively, not simply choosing one way or another in their routine individual capacities. The solution will require the same.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#516

Post by necovek »

mschuster91 wrote: post #364
palata wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

In a sense, it still comes down to supply and demand — if applicants, upon graduating, all requested to be reimbursed for, say, 25% of their tuition up front and to the university they graduated from, we'd end up with reduced salaries compared to just distributing those 25% to the new employee over a number a years.

But how do you get all students to agree with this in principle when someone is in more rush to start earning an income than others?

However, employers would then look to only hire from universities that do good teaching, so maybe it's a win-win?

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#517

Post by pjmlp »

Mengkudulangsat wrote: post #431
rohansood15 wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Students want the diploma because it has value. It has value because a student can only get it by learning and problem-solving. If students find a way to get a diploma without doing the work, it will soon be worth less than the paper on which it is printed.

> If students find a way to get a diploma without doing the work, it will soon be worth less than the paper on which it is printed. Amen. I look forward to the era where we train professionals the old fashion way: apprenticeships. It sure worked for blacksmiths and artisans for hundreds of years.

That is how many professionals are training in many European countries, and they still want a diploma to go with it.

In many countries, regardless of how learning it was achieved, you still need a paper to prove that you actually did it.

And in countries like Germany, better keep all those job evaluations close at heart because they get asked for as part of many job interview processes, additionally have them reviewed by lawyers, as they legally can't say anything negative, there is an hidden language on how to express negativity which to the reader sound positive on first read.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#518

Post by Balgair »

EigenLord wrote: post #445

I think the answer to the professor's dismay is quite simple. Many people are in university to survive a brutal social darwinist economic system, not to learn and cultivate their minds. Only a very small handful of them were ever there to study Euler angles earnestly. The rest view it as a hoop they have to jump through to hopefully get a job that might as well be automated away by AI anyway. Also viewed from a condi…

Nit pick: He's not a professor, just a grad student at the same place he got his undergrad, and he's mostly gone to university during covid. At least per his page here: https://claytonwramsey.com/about/

Its not like professors get real training either, but the guy doesn't seem to have gotten any real pedagogy.

I guess that I'm driving at that this guy is awfully young and the essay was a hot take. We should judge it accordingly.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#519

Post by pjmlp »

sublinear wrote: post #439
ChadNauseam wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If students went to college only to learn, colleges wouldn't bother giving diplomas. Compare: My piano teacher doesn't give diplomas because none of her students would care, her students actually want to learn. When my piano teacher cancels class, I am disappointed because I wanted to learn. My piano teacher doesn't need to threaten me with bad grades to get me to practice outside of class (analogous to homework), be…

Yes, but piano lessons are not a music degree. Similarly, vocational programs or apprenticeships are not a formal education either. I find a lot of these comments more disturbing than the concerns about AI.

> Similarly, vocational programs or apprenticeships are not a formal education either.

They are in some countries, you get at the vocational programs or apprenticeships alongside the highschool, and in the end you might get the opportunity to apply to the university or just carry on with your job.

That is how I did mine in the 1990's Portuguese education system, and how I was already coding and understanding the big boys computer world at 16y.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#520

Post by ascorbic »

ChadNauseam wrote: post #358
jameshart wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If students went to college only to learn, colleges wouldn't bother giving diplomas. Compare: My piano teacher doesn't give diplomas because none of her students would care, her students actually want to learn. When my piano teacher cancels class, I am disappointed because I wanted to learn. My piano teacher doesn't need to threaten me with bad grades to get me to practice outside of class (analogous to homework), be…

Most people don't go to college to learn for the sake of learning – that would be a very expensive luxury. They go for the opportunities that it opens up. The learning itself helps with that, but so does being able to prove that they've learned it. That what the diploma is meant to be for.
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