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I'd rather read the prompt

claytonwramsey.com

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Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#831

Post by johnnyanmac »

const_cast wrote: post #482
soerxpso wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 I'm there for the degree. If I wanted to learn and engage with material, I could save $60,000 and do that online for free, probably more efficiently. The purpose of a class writing exercise is to get the university to give me the degree, which I cannot do by actually learning the material (…

> I could save $60,000 and do that online for free, probably more efficiently. Not to burst yours or anyone else's bubble, but no, probably not. The hard part of learning isn't access to content, it's discipline and dedication. School provides structure, goals, timelines, and deliverables. The value of this cannot be understated. I've heard from many people how they're going to learn programming online and then get a…

It's really concerning how many thing they can curate their own course curriculum and master it to the equivalent and rigor of a 4 year degree. You don't know what you don' know so that's exactly waht a teacher is for. o help you close gaps and push you a bit further. An athlete wouldn't think they can train as efficiently without a coach, I'm not sure why acedemis is seen any differently. Because people had a bad teacher here and there? Yeah, that's life. Don't typecast an entier population over one bad experience.

Also, do I really need to remind people here of the "resources" used when you struggle and need help while self-guided?

- I probably don't need to rant about StackOverflow. Discord can be incredibly hit or miss, many forum pleas goes uncalled. It can be really hard to get unsuck compared to asking a teacher about their own assignment

- worse than asking quesions, forget getting high quality feedback on your project: getting people to do more than a quick skim takes effort in and of itself. You'd truly find an angelic soul if anyone decided to disect and correc your source code.

- there's also so, so, so many domains to explore. How will you specialize without knowing they exist? And if you've dug deep into any domain, you know that this is where the publicly free knowledge truly dries up. You won't find a nifty course on low level optimization hacks, nor network architecture (beej gets close, but only touches the surface), nor modern rendering techniques. You'll find some 300 level material, but 400 level stuff will likely require a mix of cobbling project ideas together that's within your reach but also pushing you. Scoping is always hard to do, and nearly impossible while still a student.

And Software is one of the easier domains to self learn. Good luck with the lab based STEM, getting proper feedback in art while learning theory, taste testing as a cook, using power tools in any given blue collar work, etc.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#832

Post by bumby »

godelski wrote: post #814
bumby wrote: post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody ever claimed the best fix is going after the proximate cause and not touching the root cause. That’s a narrative you contrived. I’m in favor of fixing both (which is how systemic improvements ought to work).

Look back at the thread: - ebiester claimed academia made itself the gatekeeper of credentials - alpinisme suggested that was silly. Employers have autonomy - you asked why MOOC classes don't get the same credentials - I said you missed alpinisme's point. The employer is the one that is deciding those credentials are not equal. I also pointed out how the same is true about different universities. Pointing out that yo…

You realize employers are sometimes regulated by who they can hire, right? A nurse often must be licensed. An engineer who stamps designs (ie one who isn’t under an exemption) has to be licensed. One of the major steps in that process is getting an accredited degree. (Yes, there are edge cases where you may be licensed without an engineering degree, but those are so vanishingly rare as to not really be a factor).

There is certainly room for employers to stop over-credentialing jobs, but there’s also room for universities to improve their role in the process. Employers don’t have “complete autonomy”; we can’t just suddenly decide we’re going to create more nurses, doctors, engineers, and lawyers because we’ve found a loophole in the pipeline.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#833

Post by johnnyanmac »

valenterry wrote: post #638
palata wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, if the information I need is in the documentation, then I don't need the LLM. If it is not in the documentation, then the LLM will invent stuff that could be there but that isn't, and it's actually a loss of time.

> In my experience, if the information I need is in the documentation, then I don't need the LLM need is a strong word. Do you need to be able to do ctrl+F? Not really, you can just read it all. But maybe it's easier to do ctrl+F. Same with LLM. Just imagine it as a fuzzy ctrl+F. Can be useful.

Fuzzy isn't what I want to be when referring documentation. So much documentation is incomplete to begin with.

That's the big issue with LLMs as of now; They reflect their American creators and never want to admit when they just can't answer a question. CTRL+F will in fact give me 0 results, which is more useful than a wrong result.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#834

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

jampekka wrote: post #532
const_cast wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I could save $60,000 and do that online for free, probably more efficiently. Not to burst yours or anyone else's bubble, but no, probably not. The hard part of learning isn't access to content, it's discipline and dedication. School provides structure, goals, timelines, and deliverables. The value of this cannot be understated. I've heard from many people how they're going to learn programming online and then get a…

I'm teaching faculty at a university and, at least where it comes to lecture courses, I don't find this a bubble. There are definitely plenty of students who would do just fine, if not even better, without the external discipline and structure. And even more those who could do it with something like a MOOC or just a posted curriculum. And to be able to work without an external discipline is IMHO one of the main learn…

In my experience people who have learned to code by themselves write the most incomprehensible balls of spaghetti. Then when everyone else struggles with their garbage code they convince themselves it's because they're so good because they didn't need to go to uni and learned it all on their own.

Universities have all sorts of pathologies, from academic fraud to parasitic admins, but they also have people with deep knowledge of their field and who occasionally are even good teachers, and undergrad courses at least leave you enough time to explore and direct your own learning.

They also put you in an environment where you can measure yourself against others, which you sure don't get sitting in your bedroom hacking your games. As a consequence, your head doesn't get inflated so much (unless you're top of the class, which kind of naturally resolves itself when you get your first job where everyone thinks you're a useless moron with no life experience).

Also: university libraries.

Edit: oh shit. I just realised. I did learn to code on my own O.o

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#835

Post by AdieuToLogic »

zarathustreal wrote: post #327
AdieuToLogic wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The onus should be on the educators to reframe how they teach and how they test. It's strange how the author can't see this. > Universities and schools must change how they do things with respect to AI, otherwise they are failing the students. Hard disagree. Students need to answer a fundamental question of themselves; Am I here to learn or to get a passing grade? If it is the former, the latter doesn't really matt…

Universities do not provide knowledge, this is a romanticization of an ideal. They are about getting a passing grade and a certificate so that you can enter the workforce. The idea that you go to college to get an education is just a polite fiction to appease students and their parents

> Universities do not provide knowledge, this is a romanticization[sic] of an ideal. They are about getting a passing grade and a certificate so that you can enter the workforce. The idea that you go to college to get an education is just a polite fiction to appease students and their parents

University is like a supermarket.

For some, they go there with a loose idea of what they want only to find ingredients not previously considered, often ending up with a better dining experience because of it.

For others, it is aisle after aisle of crap "Uber Eats" can deliver already made and without the hassle of having to cook it.

To each their own.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#836

Post by valenterry »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #833
valenterry wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In my experience, if the information I need is in the documentation, then I don't need the LLM need is a strong word. Do you need to be able to do ctrl+F? Not really, you can just read it all. But maybe it's easier to do ctrl+F. Same with LLM. Just imagine it as a fuzzy ctrl+F. Can be useful.

Fuzzy isn't what I want to be when referring documentation. So much documentation is incomplete to begin with. That's the big issue with LLMs as of now; They reflect their American creators and never want to admit when they just can't answer a question. CTRL+F will in fact give me 0 results, which is more useful than a wrong result.

I agree.

However, as a non-native speaker, I really like the fact that I can give the LLM some description of a word that I don't know and it'll figure it out. "those fruits that are kind of bitter but also make my tongue feel like it wants to curl" (= "adstringend" [sic] or so, but who remembers that word or can spell it correctly?)

LLMs are basically like all those type-correction algorithms on steroids. Very helpful sometimes, even if it means I have to doublecheck their output.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#837

Post by deadbabe »

phamilton wrote: post #455
deadbabe wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someday, LLMs are going to cost actual serious money to use and people will have “LLM bills” to pay every month just to have some semblance of a brain at work. Maybe a portion of salary can just be deducted directly from a paycheck to pay for LLM tools.

I can run the Qwen 3 0.6B model directly on my 3-year-old phone, and it can rewrite text and help me clearly explain my views. Even with new models possibly being less open and subsidized options drying up, we still have useful open models available for free on consumer hardware. Source: I used it to write this post.

There will be bigger LLMs, too big to run locally

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#838

Post by johnnyanmac »

seattle_spring wrote: post #789
bdangubic wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you work there, as OP said, it's time to look for another job.

Totally, if you're willing to trade in your half-million or more annual compensation for $150k or less. My point is that it's an unfortunate game you have to play if you're working for places like that.

>Totally, if you're willing to trade in your half-million or more annual compensation for $150k or less.

I will take 60k at this point. I've been living ono half of that for almost 2 years now.

I have no idea how anyone is navigating this job market. Maybe it's just 10x worse and most people here are in the Bay area that's a tiny bit more shielded from this.

>Their number is absolutely miniscule compared to the number of big-tech jobs.

give it another year of layoffs. We'll get there.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#839

Post by rbits »

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 can definitely tell which of my teachers at university fell into that camp and which didn't. The classes where I left feeling like I learnt the most were the ones where the assignments challenged us and were a core part of the teaching. In many other classes the teaching and the assignments felt separate, with the assignments just existing to test our knowledge rather than grow our skills.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#840

Post by johnnyanmac »

ponector wrote: post #199
necovek wrote: post #54

I've already asked a number of colleagues at work producing insane amount of gibberish with LLMs to just pass me the prompt instead: if LLM can produce verbose text with limited input, I just need that concise input too (the rest is simply made up crap).

Chatgpt very useful for adding softness and politeness to my sentences. Would you like more straight forward text which probably will be rude for regular american?

>which probably will be rude

as long as the text isn't at risk of being written up by HR, I don't particularly care about the tone of the message.

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