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I think the impact of LLMs for education is REALLY underappreciated. You don't need AGI, just local repetition, with some interactivity. Your average science te
by local_crmdgeon 3y ago
I think the impact of LLMs for education is REALLY underappreciated. You don't need AGI, just local repetition, with some interactivity. Your average science teacher knows a lot about a lot, but not a ton about anything. That's perfect for one-on-one LLM tutoring
- acomjean 3y agoI get that people want this. The issue is that these things go off the rails sometimes. Without any supervision and as an “educational” resource it will be unquestioned and in front of people who don’t know enough to question it.
- elevaet 3y agoI think we have to just really drill into our minds that, as convincing as these tools are, sometimes they are flat out lying/mistaken/misinformed. If we treat them like our know-it-all friend who is sometimes just a big bullshitter, and take everything with a pinch of salt, then these can be extremely useful tools for learning the big picture if not the specifics. Now, is it reasonable to expect children to be skeptical about everything the AI tutor is telling them? Probably not? Maybe? We've all had human teachers make mistakes or bullshit, maybe we can accept some fallibility in these LLMs too.
- lumb63 3y agoMore generally, we should be skeptical of all new information we learn. What makes someone more trustworthy than an LLM? For science we need experiments, theories, mechanisms, etc. For history we need sources, ideally primary, and working from there. For math we need proofs. Knowledge is much more fallible than many appreciate. Many of the “universal” truths of today were once unknown or controversial. Our understanding of the world is built on a giant set of shoulders, of all those who have come before us. We do ourselves a great disservice not to acknowledge, understand, and appreciate how something came to be “true”.
- acomjean 3y ago> What makes someone more trustworthy than an LLM? I mean people can be terrible. But a teacher is a trusted profession and likely needs that paycheck and will avoid doing stupid things to loose that. I don’t think LLM care one way or another. Someone should ask one.
- lumb63 3y agoI’m not implying teachers are uneducated, but rather that it’s important to understand why what they are teaching is accepted. For instance, creationism used to be taught in public schools, we used to not believe germs to be the cause of illness, etc. What we teach is a reflection of what we “know”, but what we know isn’t always true.
- local_crmdgeon 3y agoExactly - people want these to be infallible. I say stupid stuff literally constantly and I'm a grown adult. Teachers are incredibly fallible - but someone schooled in math can still do a ton of good.
- staunton 3y ago> Now, is it reasonable to expect children to be skeptical about everything the AI tutor is telling them? Probably not? Maybe? That might be the single most important thing to teach children now.
- burnished 3y agoEh, its a lot easier to question a machine that isn't also defending its ego. Kids are quick to spot and question a contradiction until that behavior is socialized away - an LLM doesnt get impatient when you ask a bunch of questions, or dismiss you because it thinks the question is dumb. It can be a good tool.
- kirkules 3y agoSure, an LLM based tool may happily double down on a wrong position, and articulately address a student's concerns in doing so, possibly hallucinating convincing evidence.
- burnished 3y agoHuman tutors have this same failure mode. And at that point its pretty easy to have people come to the teacher when things get squirrelly in any way.