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The AI-Education Death Spiral a.k.a. Let the Kids Cheat

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Re: The AI-Education Death Spiral a.k.a. Let the Kids Cheat

#71

Post by BobbyJo »

simianwords wrote: post #66
BobbyJo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Technology tends to increase the value of capital and not the value of labor, at least that has been the pattern for the last 50+ years. Take that trend to its conclusion and merit is crushed under the weight of who your parents are.

I don’t agree. Technology simply amplifies your talents.

Real wages are effectively unchanged since 1970 [0]. So, either technology hasn't advanced enough to make people more productive, or technology hasn't increased the value of labor. One of the two has to be true.

[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/08/07/for-most-...

Note on the above, be weary of data that starts ~1980 since that was a deeply recessionary period. Lots of information likes to use that period as the origin since it makes it look like real wages have increased. During 1970 to 1980 there was a steep decline in real wages.

Re: The AI-Education Death Spiral a.k.a. Let the Kids Cheat

#72

Post by ytoawwhra92 »

sgarland wrote: post #63
ytoawwhra92 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was allowed to use a scientific calculator in all my high school math exams. My parents were shocked by this because it would've been considered cheating when they were in school. Homework, exams, essays, assignments and so on are all tools designed to help students achieve learning outcomes. Those tools are becoming less effective due to the technology to which the students now have access. Making adjustments to t…

I know this will come across as a trope, but a calculator doesn’t seem to me to be at the same level as AI in most circumstances. If we’re talking about grade school children who are learning multiplication, then yes, a calculator is unhelpful to their education. If we’re talking about a high school physics exam, it probably doesn’t matter if you can show your work on converting units so much as it does that you knew…

I think it's easy to say this now, because calculator technology is ubiquitous, assessment methods have been adapted to account for calculator use, and we now have multiple generations of adults who used calculators in schools as students.

And yet the debate on calculator use in schools raged for a good 40 years or so before it quietened down - only to be replaced a short decade or two later by AI cheating.

> If we’re talking about grade school children who are learning multiplication, then yes, a calculator is unhelpful to their education.

FWIW, research doesn't support this:

https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/INFORMIT.46244543468...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/42802150?seq=1#page_scan_tab_co...

https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:176139

Re: The AI-Education Death Spiral a.k.a. Let the Kids Cheat

#73

Post by ytoawwhra92 »

denverllc wrote: post #62
ytoawwhra92 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was allowed to use a scientific calculator in all my high school math exams. My parents were shocked by this because it would've been considered cheating when they were in school. Homework, exams, essays, assignments and so on are all tools designed to help students achieve learning outcomes. Those tools are becoming less effective due to the technology to which the students now have access. Making adjustments to t…

> it would've been considered cheating when they were in school. Doubt. What field of study? The predominant calculation helper was slide rules, which were allowed in engineering exams in the 60s and 70s. Besides, in engineering you had to show all of your work and that had a large impact on the grade you got.

I said high school.

Re: The AI-Education Death Spiral a.k.a. Let the Kids Cheat

#74

Post by cal_dent »

gorgoiler wrote: post #35
robot-wrangler wrote: post #16

> the system loses legitimacy, defection becomes the dominant strategy. Almost every sentence of this piece is a very powerful reminder that we're not really talking about education vs cheating and it's actually about real work vs optics, appearances vs reality, fake news vs information, and all the rest at the same time. A certain amount of bullshit is and always has been standard, and you see it in all kinds of fol…

Brilliantly said. In the Good Old Days, part of the role of a good education was to set oneself up to join influential social groups. These groups contained smart, interesting, learned people. They tacitly or overtly selected new members based on how smart, interesting, and learned they were. You can get the grades but remain excluded if your interviewer at Oxford or Harvard thinks you are boring, or the chaps at the…

Society is going to big on IRL communication and activity in my view. It's sort of like office work, anyone who has ever worked in large corporations can spot a faker a mile off. Some people who can wax lyrical nothingness in meetings they've prepared for etc. but grab them unprepared an the artifice is pretty clear. Same thing will happen in wider society because ultimately our existing filtering systems which were kind of outsourced to schools etc. are seemingly in the process of breaking down

Re: The AI-Education Death Spiral a.k.a. Let the Kids Cheat

#75

Post by vunderba »

vivzkestrel wrote: post #27

- the solution is very simple, stop giving homework completely - when students come to the classroom, before assigning them work, have them place their cellphones at the teacher's table - then give them homework, as simple as that

This is a well-known concept called the "flipped classroom" and it works excellently. Because the time a student NEEDS a teacher the most is when they are actively struggling on a problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipped_classroom

Re: The AI-Education Death Spiral a.k.a. Let the Kids Cheat

#76

Post by cal_dent »

chairmansteve wrote: post #46

My entire (non American) education career was exam based. The exams were tightly supervised, no books etc. Every thing had to be memorised. Cheating was impossible. Funny thing is, memorising something is a big help to understanding it. In that system, AI is a very useful tool. AFAIK, this is how they still do it in many Asian countries. It worked pretty well. Produced a lot of educated people.

Yes, same. We also had oral exams for particular subjects where you essentially had a discussion with a teacher or panel of teachers on a particular topic. All of that will eventually come back. I don't see how that doesnt come back as a normal thing in schools

Re: The AI-Education Death Spiral a.k.a. Let the Kids Cheat

#77

Post by jazzyjackson »

ludston wrote: post #30

This article isn't really about AI. It's about how this blogger doesn't value high-school education beyond it serving as a day-care. Talking about AI is for dressing this up as a controversial hot-take for click-bait. The root of the flaw in this thinking is a common assumption that school is designed to create drones for the workforce rather than to round out human beings. Giving youth an opportunity to be a part of…

I'm not convinced staying in classrooms from ages 16-22 is actually conducive to a well rounded citizenry. USA must have the highest proportion of 4 year graduates in the world and look where it's got us. It's just more time to grow into your cliques and push off the real world while "preparing for the real world"

Source: John Taylor Gatto, Jonathan Kozol, Ken Robinson to some extent.

When I was in university I went on a trip to Shanghai and met a woman my age who started her career at 14, she was global head of marketing while I was still trying to pass calculus...

Re: The AI-Education Death Spiral a.k.a. Let the Kids Cheat

#78

Post by ludston »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #77
ludston wrote: post #30

This article isn't really about AI. It's about how this blogger doesn't value high-school education beyond it serving as a day-care. Talking about AI is for dressing this up as a controversial hot-take for click-bait. The root of the flaw in this thinking is a common assumption that school is designed to create drones for the workforce rather than to round out human beings. Giving youth an opportunity to be a part of…

I'm not convinced staying in classrooms from ages 16-22 is actually conducive to a well rounded citizenry. USA must have the highest proportion of 4 year graduates in the world and look where it's got us. It's just more time to grow into your cliques and push off the real world while "preparing for the real world" Source: John Taylor Gatto, Jonathan Kozol, Ken Robinson to some extent. When I was in university I went…

> USA must have the highest proportion of 4 year graduates in the world and look where it's got us

It doesn't.

> look where it's got us

Richest nation on earth. To be fair that's as much tied to population size, resources, colonial-style capitalist exploitation as it is to American Exceptionalism and a good education system. And the US is suffering from a worsening wealth redistribution problem. But that's only going to be solved with more and better education not less.

Re: The AI-Education Death Spiral a.k.a. Let the Kids Cheat

#79

Post by weregiraffe »

chairmansteve wrote: post #46

My entire (non American) education career was exam based. The exams were tightly supervised, no books etc. Every thing had to be memorised. Cheating was impossible. Funny thing is, memorising something is a big help to understanding it. In that system, AI is a very useful tool. AFAIK, this is how they still do it in many Asian countries. It worked pretty well. Produced a lot of educated people.

What, you never went for a bathroom break and perused the slick in your pocket while there?

Re: The AI-Education Death Spiral a.k.a. Let the Kids Cheat

#80

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

Avicebron wrote: post #2

You know, back in the day, teachers used to try and convey the "why" behind things like writing essays and reading books. Spark notes existed, but a good teacher could convey, hey, there is a reason we are doing this thing, it is because it has value outside the note that says you completed the task itself.

I think it's important to distinguish between actual learning (e.g. the "why") and learning to repeat magic words. A lot of school level tests involve prompting the student to repeat a magic word at the right time (e.g. "condensation") rather than actually understanding the underlying process.
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