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The criticisms quoted in this article are rather poor. First the contention that AI is better for rote tasks. Not true -- this is an old and outdated view. Also

The criticisms quoted in this article are rather poor. First the contention that AI is better for rote tasks. Not true -- this is an old and outdated view. Also the pooh-poohing of mere knowledge. You know, our democracies could benefit from more people understanding statistics and/or chemistry. If you understand first year physics + chemistry + biology + math + econ + psych, you get a pretty useful model of how the world works. If you really get those subjects, you're able to make all kinds of inferences and guesses that turn out to be right surprisingly often. As a game developer, I have a lot of exposure to the art-school types, and it's amazing how poor their grasp is of how anything works, other than EDIT: s/humans/human emotions/ and human-centric narrative.

kiba 7y ago
I would contend that knowledge is better gained through slower, deeper studies, not through rapid fire education for a single semester. People may be taught physics and biology, but most of the knowledge will wash through them once they finished their exams and got their grade.
- newguy1234 7y ago
  The AI/self-study type platforms could possibly solve this problem since it would allow the learner to progress at their own pace. I agree that "deeper level study" is huge part of getting the bigger picture.
  - analognoise 7y ago
    The most successful people in MOOCs and boot camps are people with college degrees already!
  - Datenstrom 7y ago
    AI self study can certainly get you to the equivalent of a Masters degree, and much faster for anyone who is motivated, unfortunately I would never recommend that to anyone. The problem is that even after years of working in the field you will likely be underpaid, and it won't be possible to find jobs in the field without a direct connection. Another problem is that if you want to go for a PhD to learn beyond that you will need to sit though years and years of useless classes that you have essentially already taken, just to check some boxes. I don't think anyone self motivated to learn things will sit though 6 years of useless classes to check some boxes or at the very least it will be terribly depressing wasting so much life. At least that is my experience. The open materials for CS and AI are great though.
    - newguy1234 7y ago
      I believe that within our lifetime we will see a direct replacement of that traditional model that you are thinking of (only "traditional" universities offer reputable degrees). New model I see occurring is more focused on certification based credentials where you have to prove your competency on a rigorous evaluation by a reputable testing organization. If someone has obtained specialized knowledge then it should not be an issue if you got it from online sources or traditional university sources.
- JabavuAdams 7y ago
  Agree with you there. Also, my experience is atypical because I'm going back to these subjects after 25 years out of school. It's interesting to me that many people will revisit favourite novels, or religious texts, but we don't re-read textbooks. I'm getting whole new layers of meaning from the same old first-year stuff. AI / agents could help schedule revisiting topics to achieve deeper understanding.
  - xamuel 7y ago
    If you think there's a lot to get from re-visiting textbooks, try re-visiting the actual sources. For example, Blaise Pascal's vivid accounts of his experiments in fluid dynamics (and his battles with the status quo who believed nature abhors a vacuum) will have you on the edge of your seat like a thriller novel--AND you'll come away with a much better understanding of fluid dynamics than you could achieve in a classroom. Or take Charles Darwin, you'd think "The Origin of Species" would be pretty much sucked dry, but nope, it has vast swathes of low-hanging fruit practically jumping out of the pages, begging for someone like you to make the connections and churn out interesting research papers like you're drawing water from a faucet.
    - JabavuAdams 7y ago
      Thanks for this -- this is something that I keep meaning to do and keep forgetting to do w.r.t e.g. Shannon. I should apply it more generally.
- forkLding 7y ago
  I think they're going the right route though if its a tutoring service that is always online and accessible, I wish I even had that in university
- derefr 7y ago
  The aim of school isn’t to make you remember any given fact or theorem. It’s to make you build a mental index of such facts and theorems that resembles the shape of the space itself, such that you can 1. understand the “positioning” or relevance of a new idea in that space; and 2. know where you’d search, and what questions you’d ask, to look up any fact or theorem you hear about, or kinda-sorta remember exists. The main problem with public schooling is that the system designers (learning-target criteria setters, curriculum designers, textbook publishers, etc.) don’t properly communicate the fact that surveying the field to build a mental map of it, is the goal of primary (and most secondary) education. So you get teachers, parents, and students all worrying about test scores that show that you don’t understand a particular idea, when the curriculum was never designed to communicate particular ideas, but only the structures containing them.
  - kiba 7y ago
    I think that giving the system designers too much credit and in any case, I think dismissive of fact or conceptual knowledge, which are key to being able to ask questions about topics.

kiba 7y ago

I would contend that knowledge is better gained through slower, deeper studies, not through rapid fire education for a single semester. People may be taught physics and biology, but most of the knowledge will wash through them once they finished their exams and got their grade.

newguy1234 7y ago
The AI/self-study type platforms could possibly solve this problem since it would allow the learner to progress at their own pace. I agree that "deeper level study" is huge part of getting the bigger picture.
- analognoise 7y ago
  The most successful people in MOOCs and boot camps are people with college degrees already!
- Datenstrom 7y ago
  AI self study can certainly get you to the equivalent of a Masters degree, and much faster for anyone who is motivated, unfortunately I would never recommend that to anyone. The problem is that even after years of working in the field you will likely be underpaid, and it won't be possible to find jobs in the field without a direct connection. Another problem is that if you want to go for a PhD to learn beyond that you will need to sit though years and years of useless classes that you have essentially already taken, just to check some boxes. I don't think anyone self motivated to learn things will sit though 6 years of useless classes to check some boxes or at the very least it will be terribly depressing wasting so much life. At least that is my experience. The open materials for CS and AI are great though.
  - newguy1234 7y ago
    I believe that within our lifetime we will see a direct replacement of that traditional model that you are thinking of (only "traditional" universities offer reputable degrees). New model I see occurring is more focused on certification based credentials where you have to prove your competency on a rigorous evaluation by a reputable testing organization. If someone has obtained specialized knowledge then it should not be an issue if you got it from online sources or traditional university sources.
JabavuAdams 7y ago
Agree with you there. Also, my experience is atypical because I'm going back to these subjects after 25 years out of school. It's interesting to me that many people will revisit favourite novels, or religious texts, but we don't re-read textbooks. I'm getting whole new layers of meaning from the same old first-year stuff. AI / agents could help schedule revisiting topics to achieve deeper understanding.
- xamuel 7y ago
  If you think there's a lot to get from re-visiting textbooks, try re-visiting the actual sources. For example, Blaise Pascal's vivid accounts of his experiments in fluid dynamics (and his battles with the status quo who believed nature abhors a vacuum) will have you on the edge of your seat like a thriller novel--AND you'll come away with a much better understanding of fluid dynamics than you could achieve in a classroom. Or take Charles Darwin, you'd think "The Origin of Species" would be pretty much sucked dry, but nope, it has vast swathes of low-hanging fruit practically jumping out of the pages, begging for someone like you to make the connections and churn out interesting research papers like you're drawing water from a faucet.
  - JabavuAdams 7y ago
    Thanks for this -- this is something that I keep meaning to do and keep forgetting to do w.r.t e.g. Shannon. I should apply it more generally.
forkLding 7y ago
I think they're going the right route though if its a tutoring service that is always online and accessible, I wish I even had that in university
derefr 7y ago
The aim of school isn’t to make you remember any given fact or theorem. It’s to make you build a mental index of such facts and theorems that resembles the shape of the space itself, such that you can 1. understand the “positioning” or relevance of a new idea in that space; and 2. know where you’d search, and what questions you’d ask, to look up any fact or theorem you hear about, or kinda-sorta remember exists. The main problem with public schooling is that the system designers (learning-target criteria setters, curriculum designers, textbook publishers, etc.) don’t properly communicate the fact that surveying the field to build a mental map of it, is the goal of primary (and most secondary) education. So you get teachers, parents, and students all worrying about test scores that show that you don’t understand a particular idea, when the curriculum was never designed to communicate particular ideas, but only the structures containing them.
- kiba 7y ago
  I think that giving the system designers too much credit and in any case, I think dismissive of fact or conceptual knowledge, which are key to being able to ask questions about topics.