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I'd rather read the prompt

claytonwramsey.com

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Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#591

Post by lawn »

ozim wrote: post #296
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 always get triggered when people argue against „rote memorization” - but it also is technique that builds up knowledge, skills and experience. Even if one won’t need that specific know how after exams - just realization how much one can memorize and trying out some approaches to optimize it is where people grow/learn.

I think memorization is very important for one big reason:

Facts and knowledge acts as a scaffolding, making it easier to absorb more information and knowledge the more you have.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#592

Post by immibis »

jama211 wrote: post #395
roxolotl wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why it’s unlikely these systems will effectively replace software development. By the time you’ve specified the novel system you want to build well enough in English such that you get exactly the system you want you might as well have written the code.

Well… you’re forgetting the part where you can cut out the middleman. Currently a leader has to ask an engineer to build a system, and has to communicate effectively with the engineer until all of the novel details have been ironed out in the specification, and _y_ the engineer builds it. In a world where the LLM can do the building, the engineer is no longer required.

They've tried this before and they made COBOL. Turns out you still need programmers to write COBOL because it's still programming even if the program looks Englishy.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#593

Post by agumonkey »

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 use chatgpt in a socratic way from time to time because I don't want answers I want the joy of thinking and learning. I heard there were efforts to make educational LLMs (whatever that means). Maybe it will help multiply teachers leverage so that more kids get inspired without having the teacher spend 1-on-1 time with them.. I don't know.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#594

Post by dogcomplex »

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.

If you took a forklift to the gym, you'd come out of the experience not only very good at "lifting weights", but having learned a whole lot more about the nature and physics of weightlifting from a very different angle.

Sure, you should lift them yourself too. But using an AI teaches you a shit-ton more about any field than your own tired brain was going to uncover. It's a very different but powerful educational experience.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#595

Post by xandrius »

kouru225 wrote: post #341

Ever since AI came out I’ve been talking about the prompt to output ratio. We naturally assume that the prompt will be smaller than the output just because of the particulars of the systems we use, but as you get more and more particular of what you want, the prompt grows while the output stays the same size. This is logical. If instead of writing an essay, I just describe what I want the essay to say, the descriptio…

I don't think prompt / output ratio, is the speed to get the output that matters.

If I spend 1 hour and write 500 words of prompt to then attach X additional rows of data (e.g. Rows from a table) and the LLM returns X rows of perfect answers. It shouldn't matter that the output ratio is worse than if I had typed those characters myself.

The important thing is whether within that 1 hour (+ few minutes of LLM processing) I managed to get the job done quicker or not.

It's similar to programming, using LLMs is not necessarily to write better code than I personally could but to write good enough code much faster than I ever would.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#596

Post by kharak »

ozim wrote: post #296
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 always get triggered when people argue against „rote memorization” - but it also is technique that builds up knowledge, skills and experience. Even if one won’t need that specific know how after exams - just realization how much one can memorize and trying out some approaches to optimize it is where people grow/learn.

Coming from the other side of this argument: In my degree, rote memorization was required for a surprising amount of courses. It required students, me included, to memorize huge quantities of things we knew were utterly irrelevant to anything but being graded. (This prediction remained true). Committing irrelevant course work into memory over and over again almost burned me out, certainly made me lose all interest and fun in learning for over a decade afterwards. To be honest, I still feel slightly burned and that might never go away.

You might have attended a good degree, where the learned information was actually beneficial. But I'd bet for most degrees out there, rote memorization is the consequence of professors wanting easily gradable exams, existing for their benefit, not the students.

Which means the actual problem is low quality education and degrees and we might find common ground here.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#597

Post by colbyn »

> 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.

Personally, I’ve been enjoying using ChatGPT to explore different themes of writing. It’s fun. In my case the goal is specifically to produce artifacts of text that’s different from what I’d normally produce.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#598

Post by exe34 »

pjmlp wrote: post #517
Mengkudulangsat wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 reviewe…

He regularly turned up to work. He attempted every task that he was given. His manager evaluated the results.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#599

Post by palata »

nradov wrote: post #454
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.

Sure, the system is broken but what's the alternative? Employers have a surplus of applicants for entry-level technical positions. They need to filter the applicant pool down to those with some level of competence and discipline. Possession of a college degree is a reasonably accurate proxy for those attributes: lots of false negatives but good enough from the employer's perspective. Ideally maybe employers ought to…

> Sure, the system is broken but what's the alternative?

As I said, the only country I know where it is like that is the US.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#600

Post by garygatory »

simonask wrote: post #546
ascorbic wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's a US-centric view. A huge number of people in the world have access to high level education free of charge.

Opportunity cost is cost.
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