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Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

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Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#781

Post by adamtaylor_13 »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #751
adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The presumption that we're losing "intelligence" is unproven and widely debated. I'd prefer "capability" over raw intellect any day, and my capability is definitely greater than it was a year ago.

There's nothing to debate about "use it or lose it"; the reduction in numeracy after the adoption of pocket calculators is well established. And "capability" is the measure of the mere assembly line worker. "Raw intellect" is the measure of the inventors and creators.

I've also "lost" (or rather, never had) the ability to manually manage memory, and I have no idea what my machine code actually does once my program compiles.

Yet, I'd say my career so far has been very successful and personally enriching for me.

So what am I losing? I still use my intellect day in and day out, so it can't be that I'm not using my intellect at all.

I don't find this argument persuasive.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#782

Post by tomjakubowski »

christophilus wrote: post #3
loneboat wrote: post #2

What a terribly ambiguous title. "Failing grades soar after xyz" makes it sound like xyz has helped what were previously terrible, failing grades become good ones.

Failing news headlines soar after AI takes over reporters jobs.

generally an editor writes the headline, not the reporter

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#783

Post by pseudohadamard »

svachalek wrote: post #668
lukan wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure he is sending automated messages, or used LLM to polish up some writing? Would be a difference to me, but .. still weird.

I'm unconvinced of this "polishing" everyone seems to claim. Whenever someone dumps a load of slop on you, that's always the answer, oh this is totally my own work, but I used AI to "polish" it. Then why is it so clearly crap? What kind of "polishing" makes text bloated and empty? No, they were too lazy to write and let the machine do it.

> Whenever someone dumps a load of slop on you, that's always the answer, oh this is totally my own work, but I used AI to "polish" it.

D'you mean this sort of polishing: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/67/af/5c/67af5cb3b3d0953d91d180e52...

Sorry about the Pinterest link, couldn't find a cleaner one.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#784

Post by smcg »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #738
calepayson wrote: post #708

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your opinion where is the line on where LLMs are useful/harmful to learning? In my school projects I've found them super useful for working with libraries. In the past it felt like the theory I learned was pretty low impact. 80% of my time was spent learning the quirks of a library. Now it feels like I can take theory and iterate over a ton of different solutions without having to worry about learning whatever lib…

If you don't want to improve your ability to work with new libraries, then that's your decision.

I thought this was one of the most important skills to have early in my career.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#785

Post by citadel_melon »

camelmel wrote: post #35

I have some sympathy for these kids. If LLMs were around when I was a student, I would've also used them to "speed up" my homework assignments then proceed to fail all my tests. Now I work mostly with PhDs who were at the top of every academic environment they've ever been in. And yet I can see their thinking skills rapidly declining as well; many of them can no longer brainstorm, code, think deeply, or write without…

I’ve started picking up a new language with the help of LLMs (not the only source, but it helps me make flashcards using Leipzig Glossings) and it’s helped me read through math textbooks on my free time much faster/more thoroughly (ambiguous concepts/proofs that used to require a TA or professor for help now I can sort through on my own without having to laboriously cross reference two other textbooks). I also created a prototype app that creates flashcards automatically for a distributed systems book I am currently working through, making concepts stick longer through active recall. I’ll also use LLMs to learn more about the tangental figures in the history books I am reading that I couldn’t have just learned from the book itself and would have been too much of a hassle to look online or in other books.

These are just a few examples of how I use LLMs to learn faster.

LLMs are a tool and I have seen massive gains from them personally

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#786

Post by rahimnathwani »

smcg wrote: post #784
rahimnathwani wrote: post #738

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't want to improve your ability to work with new libraries, then that's your decision.

I thought this was one of the most important skills to have early in my career.

Yup!

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#787

Post by deadbabe »

nkrisc wrote: post #367
deadbabe wrote: post #294

It’s not that they can’t think deeply, these are smart people. It’s that there is no reward for doing so and in fact there is punishment . The punishment is that for all the thinking you do, someone else will arrive at the same result as you in less time, or maybe even a better result. You don’t get rewarded for the effort of thinking, only for the end result. Naturally, even if you are an intelligent individual, you…

But you are rewarded for the effort: you're rewarded with knowledge. Whether or not you value that reward depends on the individual.

What you value personally does not have as much impact on your life as the things people will value about you. In corporate, people value you for the amount of money you can make them.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#788

Post by perpetualpatzer »

JonChesterfield wrote: post #406
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #71

>In addition, the guidelines state that “a typical GPA for a lower division course will fall in the range 2.8 – 3.3.” In spring 2026, both classes’ average grades were C-pluses, according to Berkeleytime, corresponding to a 2.3 GPA. As a Cal alum, I am actually really glad to see they are holding the line on grade inflation. I worked my butt off to achieve the GPA I did, and it would really suck to see my labor deval…

It won't last. You need a good grade to find work after so handing out lower grades decreases applications next year. On the plus side, high grade + long ago remains a signal.

> high grade + long ago remains a signal

Does it? I didn't think people looked at GPAs once you're 5 or so years into a career.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#789

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #781
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing to debate about "use it or lose it"; the reduction in numeracy after the adoption of pocket calculators is well established. And "capability" is the measure of the mere assembly line worker. "Raw intellect" is the measure of the inventors and creators.

I've also "lost" (or rather, never had) the ability to manually manage memory, and I have no idea what my machine code actually does once my program compiles. Yet, I'd say my career so far has been very successful and personally enriching for me. So what am I losing? I still use my intellect day in and day out, so it can't be that I'm not using my intellect at all . I don't find this argument persuasive.

That attributes your success to the wrong cause. Your career (and mine) has been successful and personally enriching because of the colossal demand for software developers over the past 25 years guaranteeing employment to anyone who could write fizzbuzz. But demand for developers can now be filled by AI that does know how to manually manage memory and a whole lot more. Those deep technical skills may well be the only remaining value proposition developers still have to compete against AI.

And you, by your own admission, don't have them. "Game over, man, game over."

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