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> School is not an adversary, school is here to teach. This is debatable, at least in the US. In many cases, higher ed is here to offer a credential and networ

> School is not an adversary, school is here to teach. This is debatable, at least in the US. In many cases, higher ed is here to offer a credential and network regardless of true aptitude since many students will simply not use the majority of what they are supposed to be learning in their career. Put another way, students were already using things like ratemyprofessor to deliberately tailor their courses for easier grades back when I was in school, plus memorizing older exams rather than studying the core material in detail, or just straight up paying someone else to write papers for you. AI is an extension of this, not something new.

palata 3y ago
> This is debatable, at least in the US. Then instead of fixing the AI problem in your broken system, maybe fix the system? Maybe I'm being naive here, and we're doomed anyway.
CptFribble 3y ago
Some students will always try to cheat, that is inevitable. But saying that whether schools are for teaching is "debatable," while a popular meme, is a false and harmful assertion. Regardless of what you or any of us consider to be "proper education" or "good teaching," even if higher ed really is just about getting certified for jobs, the simple fact is that the purpose of school at any level is to learn various skills and facts, and any form of direct-to-the-answer interferes with that. I saw this a lot when GPT3 first came out, many people on HN and elsewhere decried the existence of book reports and essays, rejoicing that such "worthless" tasks would go the way of the dinosaur. However, all who say such things miss the crucial insight: the point of the book report is to learn and display reading comprehension. Similarly, essay writing is only about learning to communicate with essays specifically in the first one or two classes you encounter such tasks. After that, essays are used to communicate your command of the material for subjects that cannot be easily broken down into multiple-choice or short-form exams. Allowing students to use AI tools to do their homework for them is a massive step backwards, and an unimaginable risk to the future of our society. If we allow our children to use AI to do all their work for them, especially during crucial reading comprehension years, they will arrive at adulthood unable to process anything more complex than a menu. And relying on AI to summarize and communicate information that would otherwise be written into a document of some kind is an even bigger risk - then the controllers of the AI would essentially control how we process information in general, because no one would be able to do it themselves. 21% of adult Americans are already illiterate, pre-AI. 54% read below a 6th-grade level. What kind of world are we building if we push those numbers even higher?
- palata 3y ago
  I totally agree. The hard part is to get students to understand why the exercise is useful. It is easy to lose one's time writing an essay. But if you lose your time, it means you are doing it wrong; better not to do it at all.

palata 3y ago

> This is debatable, at least in the US. Then instead of fixing the AI problem in your broken system, maybe fix the system? Maybe I'm being naive here, and we're doomed anyway.

CptFribble 3y ago

Some students will always try to cheat, that is inevitable. But saying that whether schools are for teaching is "debatable," while a popular meme, is a false and harmful assertion. Regardless of what you or any of us consider to be "proper education" or "good teaching," even if higher ed really is just about getting certified for jobs, the simple fact is that the purpose of school at any level is to learn various skills and facts, and any form of direct-to-the-answer interferes with that. I saw this a lot when GPT3 first came out, many people on HN and elsewhere decried the existence of book reports and essays, rejoicing that such "worthless" tasks would go the way of the dinosaur. However, all who say such things miss the crucial insight: the point of the book report is to learn and display reading comprehension. Similarly, essay writing is only about learning to communicate with essays specifically in the first one or two classes you encounter such tasks. After that, essays are used to communicate your command of the material for subjects that cannot be easily broken down into multiple-choice or short-form exams. Allowing students to use AI tools to do their homework for them is a massive step backwards, and an unimaginable risk to the future of our society. If we allow our children to use AI to do all their work for them, especially during crucial reading comprehension years, they will arrive at adulthood unable to process anything more complex than a menu. And relying on AI to summarize and communicate information that would otherwise be written into a document of some kind is an even bigger risk - then the controllers of the AI would essentially control how we process information in general, because no one would be able to do it themselves. 21% of adult Americans are already illiterate, pre-AI. 54% read below a 6th-grade level. What kind of world are we building if we push those numbers even higher?

palata 3y ago
I totally agree. The hard part is to get students to understand why the exercise is useful. It is easy to lose one's time writing an essay. But if you lose your time, it means you are doing it wrong; better not to do it at all.