3 ms·

I think a calculator is very very different from an AI tool. With a calculator you still had to have enough knowledge to properly input any formulas. In school

I think a calculator is very very different from an AI tool. With a calculator you still had to have enough knowledge to properly input any formulas. In school you were also still forced to learn the fundamentals with less featured calculators. Also a calculator was an accepted tool once you are out of school. AI tools like copilot are still controversial within the industry and have no business being in education.

madrox 4y ago
It may be hard to believe, but this was the same argument I heard about calculators in the 80s. All that's really changed is that calculators are "normal." AI tools aren't going anywhere. They're just stackoverflow with fewer steps. Pretending they don't exist in education means students will be disadvantaged when they get to the real world and the thing that matters are results.
- falcolas 4y ago
  Pfft. Students come out of college with effectively none of the knowledge they actually need to write code for a company. Never have. Knowing, or not knowing, how to use autocomplete (ML powered or not) isn’t going to change their employability one iota.
- croes 4y ago
  Let's wait until you get a doctor who got his certificate with tools like Copilot.
sshine 4y ago
In high school, the first thing I did when I encountered a new type of assignment was write a small BASIC program on the TI83+ that solved this type. You could argue that if I can write a generalised solution to a problem, I've understood it. And that anyone copying my program would be cheating, but I wouldn't. But it meant I got good at programming, but had limited math solving time. > AI tools like copilot are still controversial within the industry Those of my colleagues who dared try it greatly appreciate it. The rest of us don't think they're cheating. They're just being productive. > have no business being in education You can say that. But it won't change whether students use AI-powered learning tools. These tools force us to rethink education so that we don't simply verify if people did something they could have got help with, since now help has become cheaper. Using a computer should not be considered cheating. It changes the game, and anyone stuck in the old game thinks it's cheating, while everyone in the new game are trying to do something else now.

madrox 4y ago

It may be hard to believe, but this was the same argument I heard about calculators in the 80s. All that's really changed is that calculators are "normal." AI tools aren't going anywhere. They're just stackoverflow with fewer steps. Pretending they don't exist in education means students will be disadvantaged when they get to the real world and the thing that matters are results.

falcolas 4y ago
Pfft. Students come out of college with effectively none of the knowledge they actually need to write code for a company. Never have. Knowing, or not knowing, how to use autocomplete (ML powered or not) isn’t going to change their employability one iota.
croes 4y ago
Let's wait until you get a doctor who got his certificate with tools like Copilot.

sshine 4y ago

In high school, the first thing I did when I encountered a new type of assignment was write a small BASIC program on the TI83+ that solved this type. You could argue that if I can write a generalised solution to a problem, I've understood it. And that anyone copying my program would be cheating, but I wouldn't. But it meant I got good at programming, but had limited math solving time. > AI tools like copilot are still controversial within the industry Those of my colleagues who dared try it greatly appreciate it. The rest of us don't think they're cheating. They're just being productive. > have no business being in education You can say that. But it won't change whether students use AI-powered learning tools. These tools force us to rethink education so that we don't simply verify if people did something they could have got help with, since now help has become cheaper. Using a computer should not be considered cheating. It changes the game, and anyone stuck in the old game thinks it's cheating, while everyone in the new game are trying to do something else now.