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I think the key skill being overlooked is the ability to spot when someone (or something) is wrong, and correctly and accurately call it out and justify why it'

by g_p 4y ago

I think the key skill being overlooked is the ability to spot when someone (or something) is wrong, and correctly and accurately call it out and justify why it's wrong. Critical evidence-based thinking and the ability to properly apply understanding to solve a problem, and validate or disprove a proposed solution is something that a language model struggles to do, as it can't apply the reasoning process on facts and circumstances and context. GPT output can be very believable and confident, but I would expect a good student to be able to question and interrogate a position and establish whether it is accurate or not, based on an evaluation of the available evidence. Education moves slowly as a sector, and I doubt many have changed anything in the last month or two, but the pandemic and a shift to remote exams or "open book" exams has (for good courses and educators) resulted in more of a focus on explanations, justification, application of knowledge to new areas, and critical evaluation. If you could copy it down in a book and repeat it in an open book exam, chances are a language model poses the same threat.

mattferderer 4y ago
This is where a tool like GPT (when it's accurate) is really helpful. I have been using it to try & generate trade-offs, disagreements & things I may not have considered. So far it's been helpful at helping me understand some areas I should look into closer. It's a great idea generator & tool to bounce things off of to use as part of your own execution in producing your own work. It's hard to find people with the right skills, who have the time & same schedule to do this.
- g_p 4y ago
  Indeed - but you still require that "subject matter expert" ability to actually evaluate the output and figure out if it's coherent or correct. That tends to require a fairly high level of techniacl knowledge (and confidence your knowledge is right). I do wonder the extent to which GPT-type tools could become teaching/learning aids - where a student asks for 5 arguments both for and against, and then fact checks them, figures out provenance of arguments, and validates them. The understanding that a student will get from taht process will, as you said, drive you to look closer at things, and ultimately if you are critically evaluating it, you'll probably learn about the subject pretty effectively. In the same way that it's often said the best way to learn something really well is to teach/explain it to others, I think the same could be said for carefully and accurately rebutting something and explaining why it's wrong.
  - mattferderer 4y ago
    > In the same way that it's often said the best way to learn something really well is to teach/explain it to others, I think the same could be said for carefully and accurately rebutting something and explaining why it's wrong. Yes, exactly this. It can be hard to find this though. I'm unable to get this out of Google or social media search engines. GPT is doing the best for me so far at helping me find them. > Indeed - but you still require that "subject matter expert" ability to actually evaluate the output and figure out if it's coherent or correct. Yes, you still have to do the work but knowing what to look into & where to put the work is much more than half the battle. It's giving you an opportunity you may never have had before which I think is as big as the Internet or written books or programming.

by g_p 4y ago

mattferderer 4y ago

This is where a tool like GPT (when it's accurate) is really helpful. I have been using it to try & generate trade-offs, disagreements & things I may not have considered. So far it's been helpful at helping me understand some areas I should look into closer. It's a great idea generator & tool to bounce things off of to use as part of your own execution in producing your own work. It's hard to find people with the right skills, who have the time & same schedule to do this.

g_p 4y ago
Indeed - but you still require that "subject matter expert" ability to actually evaluate the output and figure out if it's coherent or correct. That tends to require a fairly high level of techniacl knowledge (and confidence your knowledge is right). I do wonder the extent to which GPT-type tools could become teaching/learning aids - where a student asks for 5 arguments both for and against, and then fact checks them, figures out provenance of arguments, and validates them. The understanding that a student will get from taht process will, as you said, drive you to look closer at things, and ultimately if you are critically evaluating it, you'll probably learn about the subject pretty effectively. In the same way that it's often said the best way to learn something really well is to teach/explain it to others, I think the same could be said for carefully and accurately rebutting something and explaining why it's wrong.
- mattferderer 4y ago
  > In the same way that it's often said the best way to learn something really well is to teach/explain it to others, I think the same could be said for carefully and accurately rebutting something and explaining why it's wrong. Yes, exactly this. It can be hard to find this though. I'm unable to get this out of Google or social media search engines. GPT is doing the best for me so far at helping me find them. > Indeed - but you still require that "subject matter expert" ability to actually evaluate the output and figure out if it's coherent or correct. Yes, you still have to do the work but knowing what to look into & where to put the work is much more than half the battle. It's giving you an opportunity you may never have had before which I think is as big as the Internet or written books or programming.