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I'd rather read the prompt

claytonwramsey.com

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Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#551

Post by simonask »

strken wrote: post #326
palata wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Using llm’s for papers does not mean your brain is atrophying though. It means that you are losing your time. If you are a university student and use LLMs for your classes while "challenging your mind" for stuff outside of class, maybe you should just not be studying there in the first place.

Yes, I too enjoy that universities never send students to pointless filler courses. I really enjoyed writing long essays about ethics in software engineering for people who'd barely even read them. I especially benefited from being told that "tell your boss, tell HR, then make a police report and quit if that didn't fix it" is not an appropriate response to being asked to break the law at work. While we're talking ab…

Do you... not understand that the point of giving you a class on ethics in software development wasn't so you would produce an essay?

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#552

Post by mordae »

rohansood15 wrote: post #400
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…

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.

Good. It's about time.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#553

Post by procaryote »

mrweasel wrote: post #19
Ancalagon wrote: post #8

I fully support the author’s point but it’s hard to argue with the economics and hurdles around obtaining degrees. Most people do view obtaining a degree as just a hurdle to getting a decent job, that’s just the economics of it. And unfortunately the employers these days are encouraging this kind of copy/paste work. Look at how Meta and Google claim the majority of the new code written there is AI created? The world…

> Most people do view obtaining a degree as just a hurdle to getting a decent job Then fail to actually learn anything and apply for jobs and try to cheat the interviewers using the same AI that helped them graduate. I fear that LLMs have already fostered the first batch of developers who cannot function without it. I don't even mind that you use an LLM for parts of your job, but you need to be able to function witho…

LLMs have been popular for like 2 years... if you can't code without one, you couldn't code 2 years ago. Given 2 years you might be able to learn to.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#554

Post by Gud »

Although I agree with the OP that copy pasting verbatim from the LLM is a meaningless exercise, I just like to say that LLMs can be a fantastic study tool. I am using ChatGPT to help me with learning German, and it has had a profound impact on my learning.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#556

Post by lazide »

bumby wrote: post #356
mlsu wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of education isn't to actually learn though. It's to receive the credential. This is much larger than a cultural problem with the students of today. They believe, rightfully and accurately, that the university degree is yet another part of the machine that they will become a cog in. What should be alarming to everyone is that these students will graduate without having learned anything and then go into the…

This attitude is part of a more general cultural shift. Back in the 1960s, the majority of students said the primary motivation for going to college was to develop a philosophy of life, and a minority said the main goal was to be very financially successful. Somewhere around the 1980s this started to shift and the proportions are now inverted. * according to the UCLA CIRP freshman survey

Notably, the late 70’s and early 80’s is when large scale social changes started to happen due to high inflation and major problems in the US economy. Also a lot of social unrest, and a pretty unhinged president (Tricky Dick).

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#557

Post by suddenlybananas »

zjp wrote: post #538

I occasionally pair write with LLMs, but I give them my piece and then say, "I don't want your edits, just your feedback" and ask them some simple questions about the content and different angles on it. When the LLM says what I want it to say, I consider the piece good enough. That is to say, if a machine understands what you're saying and a human doesn't, that human's criticism might be below engaging with.

>That is to say, if a machine understands what you're saying and a human doesn't, that human's criticism might be below engaging with.

No wonder OpenAI accidentally made LLMs even more sycophantic if this is what people want from them.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#558

Post by robertlagrant »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #36
robertlagrant wrote: post #18

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

It's challenging. Assignments (and particularly programming assignments) were by far the larger and more difficult part of my CS degree, and also the place where I learned the most. I cannot imagine losing that portion of my education and just replacing it with a few exams.

I agree, and it was the same for me. I just don't think it's possible in the same way. Or if it is, perhaps it's okay to use ChatGPT for that stuff.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#559

Post by lazide »

jjmarr wrote: post #345
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.

> The reason a teacher asks you a question is not because they don’t know the answer. A decent amount of my professors don't know the answers because they bought the course, test questions, and lectures from Cengage. During exam review, they just regurgitate the answer justification that Cengage provided. During the lectures, they struggle to explain certain concepts since they didn't make the slides. Professors auto…

But that requires professors to do work and give a damn!

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#560

Post by lazide »

dyauspitr wrote: post #541
sgustard wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do some countries cheat in the Olympics? Because it is no longer a contest of human achievement, it's just about the medals as a symbol of national glory. Of course: once all countries are doping, the medals will become meaningless. College degrees will suffer the same fate if everyone cheats to get them.

The problem is there is no reliable way to test for LLM usage unlike for doping. There’s no way to police this problem.

Sure there is - evaluate the candidates actual skill level without the ability to use automated tools.

The current and old school way is a proctored exam.

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