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LLMs have already done wonders for my own learning and I think it will have a huge effect in highschool education and beyond. But below that level, the topics

LLMs have already done wonders for my own learning and I think it will have a huge effect in highschool education and beyond. But below that level, the topics that are being taught are very standardized and have been studied to death, and there already exists a ton of interactive learning tools, toys, projects, and games. Teachers below middle-school level are mostly babysitting and trying to just get kids to learn the rules and pay attention. I am concerned for the education of the next generation of kids. Stories like yours are all too common.

operatingthetan 4y ago
>LLMs have already done wonders for my own learning and I think it will have a huge effect in highschool education and beyond. Can you explain your process for using it? Is it done in a session or do you ask random questions throughout the day? Specific topics or general?
- NikolaNovak 4y ago
  I'm not the OP but the way chatgpt has enabled my learning last 2 months is: when I study or learn stuff, I have questions. I'm naturally curious and desire to fully understand something, but also a topic may encourage me to explore strange other avenues or branches or topics until I'm satisfied and can return. Reading from books or videos can be frustrating for obvious reasons. When tutored, I need an instructor who is not bound to "lesson one page one, now lesson one page two" blind and sequential approach. Chatgpt has been nothing less than a God send. E.g. I've tried to learn French 5 times over 25 years living in Canada. Always failed. I tried Michel Thomas self study, Berlitz group classroom, duolingo, even private tutor. They were serious efforts, but I hated the language and never felt I am even close to understanding it. Now whenever I have the remotest slightest question or curiosity I ask chatgpt. And then move on with the sequential class satisfied. It's both emotionally satisfying and encouraging, and it allows me to have better understanding of each topic. It's been a genuine force multiplier. Same with music theory (0.1% of piano teachers I've met are remotely capable or willing of answering questions "why". Two of them swore that "music theory" == "learning notation". Etc.) and, though far less, Python.
  - jacobolus 4y ago
    The only problem I have with this is that Chat GPT is entirely happy to make answers up out of whole cloth (including fake citations, etc. if you ask for follow-up), but present them with an air of certainty. It takes carefully tracking down each and every claim, and as often as not they turn out to be somewhere between misleading and outright wrong.
    - NikolaNovak 4y ago
      Right, but the question is : what is the chance / risk / percentage? All the examples of hallucination I see on Internet are... Either controversial or pushy or edgy. When asked a simple question on factual well-covered, non-controversial items, success rate seems very high. Do we have a feel for safe and unsafe areas? Are there type of questions or ways of asking them that will produce high confidence?
      - jacobolus 4y ago
        Not so. I have tried asking it a wide variety of non-controversial technical questions (about history, science, laws, word etymologies, etc.) and it consistently just makes up (confident sounding and plausible-to-a-non-expert) bullshit. The biggest problem I have is that the bullshit answers are in no way obviously distinguishable from the precisely correct answers. (Maybe we have different ideas of "well covered". I am guessing if you ask it about the content of middle- or high-school textbooks it will generally be about as reliable as a typical middle- or high-school textbook. But that's the stuff I don't need an AI research assistant to find out about; I can just look those up in a search engine or wikipedia and quickly get an acceptable answer.) I think it would be extremely dangerous to the general factual accuracy of claims found on the internet to have this widely adopted as a general learning tool, in its current form. Sort of "citogenesis on steroids". https://xkcd.com/978/ https://xkcd.com/978/
        NikolaNovak 4y ago
        Can we both put some examples? I ask it simple, well covered basic questions like list the types of minor chords, explain why melodic minor is different ascending and descending, what are the types of chords, explain seventh chords, etc. Please deconstruct m'apelle and s'apelle and tell me what they're made of with examples. Explain difference between Tu, te, and toi,with examples.when do you reverse pronoun and verb in French. What are the ways you can formulate a question in French. Please list reflexive pronouns in French with examples. What is the difference between secularism and humanism. Yes, I can find all these on google or Wikipedia - that's for me the point. I don't ask it any questions that wouldn't be solidly covered in its training set or would have controversy or judgment,or would be obscure my covered in a single scientific paper etc. But it's the seamless and fast method of obtaining meaningful and succinct answers to my specific questions that makes it completely different. With google, if I have a question, I am now in googling mode, avoiding first three sponsored results and avoiding next six results that are SEO optimized stories of how they're learning French due to their first girlfriend's mother etc, and then sifting through pages to get a remotely applicable answer. It completely disrupts the learning. With chatgpt, it's a seamless integrated part of my learning.

operatingthetan 4y ago

>LLMs have already done wonders for my own learning and I think it will have a huge effect in highschool education and beyond. Can you explain your process for using it? Is it done in a session or do you ask random questions throughout the day? Specific topics or general?

NikolaNovak 4y ago
I'm not the OP but the way chatgpt has enabled my learning last 2 months is: when I study or learn stuff, I have questions. I'm naturally curious and desire to fully understand something, but also a topic may encourage me to explore strange other avenues or branches or topics until I'm satisfied and can return. Reading from books or videos can be frustrating for obvious reasons. When tutored, I need an instructor who is not bound to "lesson one page one, now lesson one page two" blind and sequential approach. Chatgpt has been nothing less than a God send. E.g. I've tried to learn French 5 times over 25 years living in Canada. Always failed. I tried Michel Thomas self study, Berlitz group classroom, duolingo, even private tutor. They were serious efforts, but I hated the language and never felt I am even close to understanding it. Now whenever I have the remotest slightest question or curiosity I ask chatgpt. And then move on with the sequential class satisfied. It's both emotionally satisfying and encouraging, and it allows me to have better understanding of each topic. It's been a genuine force multiplier. Same with music theory (0.1% of piano teachers I've met are remotely capable or willing of answering questions "why". Two of them swore that "music theory" == "learning notation". Etc.) and, though far less, Python.
- jacobolus 4y ago
  The only problem I have with this is that Chat GPT is entirely happy to make answers up out of whole cloth (including fake citations, etc. if you ask for follow-up), but present them with an air of certainty. It takes carefully tracking down each and every claim, and as often as not they turn out to be somewhere between misleading and outright wrong.
  - NikolaNovak 4y ago
    Right, but the question is : what is the chance / risk / percentage? All the examples of hallucination I see on Internet are... Either controversial or pushy or edgy. When asked a simple question on factual well-covered, non-controversial items, success rate seems very high. Do we have a feel for safe and unsafe areas? Are there type of questions or ways of asking them that will produce high confidence?
    - jacobolus 4y ago
      Not so. I have tried asking it a wide variety of non-controversial technical questions (about history, science, laws, word etymologies, etc.) and it consistently just makes up (confident sounding and plausible-to-a-non-expert) bullshit. The biggest problem I have is that the bullshit answers are in no way obviously distinguishable from the precisely correct answers. (Maybe we have different ideas of "well covered". I am guessing if you ask it about the content of middle- or high-school textbooks it will generally be about as reliable as a typical middle- or high-school textbook. But that's the stuff I don't need an AI research assistant to find out about; I can just look those up in a search engine or wikipedia and quickly get an acceptable answer.) I think it would be extremely dangerous to the general factual accuracy of claims found on the internet to have this widely adopted as a general learning tool, in its current form. Sort of "citogenesis on steroids". https://xkcd.com/978/ https://xkcd.com/978/
      - NikolaNovak 4y ago
        Can we both put some examples? I ask it simple, well covered basic questions like list the types of minor chords, explain why melodic minor is different ascending and descending, what are the types of chords, explain seventh chords, etc. Please deconstruct m'apelle and s'apelle and tell me what they're made of with examples. Explain difference between Tu, te, and toi,with examples.when do you reverse pronoun and verb in French. What are the ways you can formulate a question in French. Please list reflexive pronouns in French with examples. What is the difference between secularism and humanism. Yes, I can find all these on google or Wikipedia - that's for me the point. I don't ask it any questions that wouldn't be solidly covered in its training set or would have controversy or judgment,or would be obscure my covered in a single scientific paper etc. But it's the seamless and fast method of obtaining meaningful and succinct answers to my specific questions that makes it completely different. With google, if I have a question, I am now in googling mode, avoiding first three sponsored results and avoiding next six results that are SEO optimized stories of how they're learning French due to their first girlfriend's mother etc, and then sifting through pages to get a remotely applicable answer. It completely disrupts the learning. With chatgpt, it's a seamless integrated part of my learning.