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> coming generations will have put less effort in than previous This has been happening since the inception of school. Calculators made math easier. Sparknotes

> coming generations will have put less effort in than previous This has been happening since the inception of school. Calculators made math easier. Sparknotes made book reports easier. Wikipedia made essays easier. > leading to a further drop in levels Did levels drop because stuff got easier? Were there other causes over the past years, like dopamine dependency form infinitely scrolling algorithmic attention grabbing apps, among others? Maybe from schools becoming political battle grounds? Or from education spending being gutted leading to lower quality? Was it lack of decent education due to Covid? Also, is there an actual drop in levels? I can't seem to find a source that has decent data on this. And the only stuff I can find says 'IQ' has been rising over time. So please share it with me. Lastly, I'm personally not convinced any of this will lead to a net negative per se. It'll change the required knowledge and increase the over all capabilities of people. The calculator caused people to stop learning mental arithmetic and start learning more complicated math and how to use a calculator for it. Google caused people to memorize less and become adept at finding information through Google. Welding robots caused less people to learn how to weld and more how to program welding robots. In the end it gives people the ability to do less of a simple thing and more of a complicated thing. Writing marketing e-mails and multiple titles for A/B testing isn't a skill, it's a trick and so is writing SEO stuff. Not having to do that opens up time to think about product-market fit, marketing strategies, improving advertising return on investment measurements. Which might be more valuable and interesting than writing emails.

Sol- 4y ago
> This has been happening since the inception of school. Calculators made math easier. Sparknotes made book reports easier. Wikipedia made essays easier. And advance of LLM will make general thinking and cognition easier, relegating humans to assistants of a higher intelligence. Obviously this will make people anxious. The trajectory also indicates that the human component will likely not even be necessary anymore in the mid-term. So what's left? Consuming AI-generated content optimized to hack our reward system.
tgv 4y ago
> Did levels drop because stuff got easier? Where did I say that that's the reason? You're coming up with developments that made school "easier" without any further similarity to ChatGPT, and don't consider adaptations in the curriculum or testing following those developments. I specifically mention that schools will have to get rid of (some of) their lazy evaluation processes. > Also, is there an actual drop in levels? I can't seem to find a source that has decent data on this. And the only stuff I can find says 'IQ' has been rising over time. So please share it with me. 1. The Norwegian IQ study: https://www.sciencealert.com/iq-scores-falling-in-worrying-reversal-20th-century-intelligence-boom-flynn-effect-intelligence https://www.sciencealert.com/iq-scores-falling-in-worrying-r... 2. A comparison of exams in Dutch secondary education: https://nos.nl/artikel/2465434-eindexamens-wis-en-natuurkunde-steeds-makkelijker https://nos.nl/artikel/2465434-eindexamens-wis-en-natuurkund... That trend has been observed everywhere, but has rarely been investigated for uncomfortable reasons. The Flynn effect wasn't actually believed, not even by Flynn himself. > Lastly, I'm personally not convinced any of this will lead to a net negative per se. That's such a bad basis to mess with the foundation of modern society. > The calculator caused people to stop learning mental arithmetic Agree. > and start learning more complicated math Doubt it. Mind you: I mean arithmetic, which is what calculators do, not maths. People rarely do arithmetic, even with a calculator, let alone more complicated calculations. Engineers, ok, they benefit from calculators, but the calculator has not engaged other people in more complicated arithmetics, I think. > Which might be more valuable and interesting than writing emails. I don't disagree, but it will still have unforeseen effects, and doesn't alleviate my worries about education levels.

Sol- 4y ago

> This has been happening since the inception of school. Calculators made math easier. Sparknotes made book reports easier. Wikipedia made essays easier. And advance of LLM will make general thinking and cognition easier, relegating humans to assistants of a higher intelligence. Obviously this will make people anxious. The trajectory also indicates that the human component will likely not even be necessary anymore in the mid-term. So what's left? Consuming AI-generated content optimized to hack our reward system.

tgv 4y ago

> Did levels drop because stuff got easier? Where did I say that that's the reason? You're coming up with developments that made school "easier" without any further similarity to ChatGPT, and don't consider adaptations in the curriculum or testing following those developments. I specifically mention that schools will have to get rid of (some of) their lazy evaluation processes. > Also, is there an actual drop in levels? I can't seem to find a source that has decent data on this. And the only stuff I can find says 'IQ' has been rising over time. So please share it with me. 1. The Norwegian IQ study: https://www.sciencealert.com/iq-scores-falling-in-worrying-reversal-20th-century-intelligence-boom-flynn-effect-intelligence https://www.sciencealert.com/iq-scores-falling-in-worrying-r... 2. A comparison of exams in Dutch secondary education: https://nos.nl/artikel/2465434-eindexamens-wis-en-natuurkunde-steeds-makkelijker https://nos.nl/artikel/2465434-eindexamens-wis-en-natuurkund... That trend has been observed everywhere, but has rarely been investigated for uncomfortable reasons. The Flynn effect wasn't actually believed, not even by Flynn himself. > Lastly, I'm personally not convinced any of this will lead to a net negative per se. That's such a bad basis to mess with the foundation of modern society. > The calculator caused people to stop learning mental arithmetic Agree. > and start learning more complicated math Doubt it. Mind you: I mean arithmetic, which is what calculators do, not maths. People rarely do arithmetic, even with a calculator, let alone more complicated calculations. Engineers, ok, they benefit from calculators, but the calculator has not engaged other people in more complicated arithmetics, I think. > Which might be more valuable and interesting than writing emails. I don't disagree, but it will still have unforeseen effects, and doesn't alleviate my worries about education levels.