8 ms·

Tangential but, why shouldn't universities be afraid? The value of higher education for many subjects is existentially threatened by AI. In 10-20 years, it's no

by ken47 2y ago

Tangential but, why shouldn't universities be afraid? The value of higher education for many subjects is existentially threatened by AI. In 10-20 years, it's not unrealistic that the only justifiable subset of subjects will be those whose practitioners cannot be replaced by AI.

wyldfire 2y ago
The pedagogy needs to change. Some coursework should embrace new tools and focus on how to be effective while using them. And some changes should take place to the balance of exams, writing assignments, projects, presentations to reflect an honest evaluation of the student.
alephnerd 2y ago
People said the same thing about the internet and the "highway of information" and see how that turned out. The value of a College Degree isn't the content alone, but the mental models that are taught. That's why it's used as a credentialing process.
- blizdiddy 2y ago
  As someone who earns more than my degree-holding parents through self-taught skills from the internet, AI learning seems to have a bright future.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    And statistically speaking, how many degree holders versus non-degree holders end up with 6 figure jobs? I'm not denying that you can't self learn, but most people don't have the discipline and drive needed to reach that place. Nor will the self learner pass the hiring bar for a junior role in 2024 anymore. Non-traditional college education (eg. low cost online education, expanded community college access, asynchronous learning, etc) is a happy medium and was in fact the norm for college education in the US throughout much of the 20th century (the normalization of the residential dorm model is a newish innovation - most students were historically commuter students from the early 20th century with CUNY all the way to the CSUs and UC extensions of the late 20th century). Programs like ASU or OSU's online BSCS are a better middle ground.
  - croes 2y ago
    If you are sick, do you visit a doctor or the guy who taught himself through the internet? If you cross a bridge do you have the same kind of trust in its stability if it's constructed and inspected by engineers with a college degree or some guys who played bridge builder?
    - fragmede 2y ago
      both of those you can't, because of government regulations. But (at least in the US) you go to your smart friend who taught himself through the Internet unless you're lucky enough to have actual doctor friend before you step foot in a doctor's office for anything weird because otherwise it's a waste of a copay. If I go to the doctor who went to doctor school and say I have this and that, they're gonna run some random tests and then you have to go back in a second time to run more tests. If you go into the office advocating for specific tests you want run, with scientific papers as reasons for wanting them run, then you'll get the tests you need the first time around, with informative results (positive or negative or wherever you are on the scale) in fewer visits than if you didn't ask your smart friend. If you go into a specialist doctor's office without having a list of questions to ask, for your problem, you're not getting good value for your time/money. Covid exposed a number of shortcomings in the system, and if your malidy is at all weird, you're screwed.
      - alephnerd 2y ago
        > you go to your smart friend who taught himself through the Internet unless you're lucky enough to have actual doctor friend before you step foot in a doctor's office for anything weird because otherwise it's a waste of a copay This is by definition pennywise pound foolish, and this is a very specific example, so I think it's something you do. I'm going to assume you are a decently paid white collar worker (earning $70k+ a year) and tell you that you should not think this way.
        fragmede 2y ago
        I'm going to assume you don't have any friends with ME/CFS/fibromyalgia/Long Covid or anything "interesting" and tell you that you're lucky to not have had to advocate hard for what people would consider decent level of care in the system yet. (only 70?)
- miki123211 2y ago
  THe value of a college degree is signaling. Your ability to graduate college signals to future employers that you have some combination of intelligence and work ethics. The more prestigious the institution, the stronger this signal is. At the top end of the scale, it's not even about course difficulty but admission requirements. A lot more people would be able to graduate from Harvard if given a place than can actually get into Harvard, legacy admissions who are still able to graduate being the perfect proof of this. There's research that shows that Harvard courses aren't that much more difficult than those at other, far less prestigious universities, but the admission requirements are far stricter. This phenomenon is a self-perpetuating feedback loop. If your average college graduate is slightly smarter than a non-graduate, employers will prefer graduates over non-graduates, as it's an easy thing to check. People notice how much of an advantage the college graduates have, so in the next generation, even more people choose college over other paths. This makes the gap between graduates and non-graduates even wider, which makes employers favor them more, which makes life harder for non-graduates, which causes even more people to go to college, and so it goes. At the top end, other things start to matter, it's advantageous for smart kids to mix and network with rich kids and vice versa, hence legacy admissions, but this is what matters for most graduates.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    > THe value of a college degree is signaling. It really isn't. If so, why the hell do UC Berkeley, SJSU, and UIUC CS grads outcompete Dartmouth grads in YC, Entrepreneurship in general, or the tech industry? Yes Harvard-type programs are exclusive, but they do not open that many more doors in our industry than a CalPoly or UW or Cal undergrad would have. And the college advantage goes away very fast with 4-5 years of work experience. I don't need code monkeys. Learning to code isn't a big deal. If that's all I needed, I'll just contract to Infosys or EPAM. What I and other employers need are CRITICAL THINKERS - people who can think on their feet about both technical and business problems. This requires building that critical thinking muscle. Some people learn that out in the wild, but a lot don't, and college is the first place they learn to build that muscle. College is also one of the first places you learn that you can't coast - for every grade inflating Harvard, there are 10 grade deflating UCs or public universities. We shouldn't put barriers for hard working people who have self taught themselves the ins and outs of the industry, but we shouldn't conversely automatically shit on the entire concept of tertiary education.
gessha 2y ago
Remember that AI was supposed to be solved by McCarty, Minsky and Shannon in the hot summer of 1956.

by ken47 2y ago

wyldfire 2y ago

The pedagogy needs to change. Some coursework should embrace new tools and focus on how to be effective while using them. And some changes should take place to the balance of exams, writing assignments, projects, presentations to reflect an honest evaluation of the student.

alephnerd 2y ago

People said the same thing about the internet and the "highway of information" and see how that turned out. The value of a College Degree isn't the content alone, but the mental models that are taught. That's why it's used as a credentialing process.

blizdiddy 2y ago
As someone who earns more than my degree-holding parents through self-taught skills from the internet, AI learning seems to have a bright future.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  And statistically speaking, how many degree holders versus non-degree holders end up with 6 figure jobs? I'm not denying that you can't self learn, but most people don't have the discipline and drive needed to reach that place. Nor will the self learner pass the hiring bar for a junior role in 2024 anymore. Non-traditional college education (eg. low cost online education, expanded community college access, asynchronous learning, etc) is a happy medium and was in fact the norm for college education in the US throughout much of the 20th century (the normalization of the residential dorm model is a newish innovation - most students were historically commuter students from the early 20th century with CUNY all the way to the CSUs and UC extensions of the late 20th century). Programs like ASU or OSU's online BSCS are a better middle ground.
- croes 2y ago
  If you are sick, do you visit a doctor or the guy who taught himself through the internet? If you cross a bridge do you have the same kind of trust in its stability if it's constructed and inspected by engineers with a college degree or some guys who played bridge builder?
  - fragmede 2y ago
    both of those you can't, because of government regulations. But (at least in the US) you go to your smart friend who taught himself through the Internet unless you're lucky enough to have actual doctor friend before you step foot in a doctor's office for anything weird because otherwise it's a waste of a copay. If I go to the doctor who went to doctor school and say I have this and that, they're gonna run some random tests and then you have to go back in a second time to run more tests. If you go into the office advocating for specific tests you want run, with scientific papers as reasons for wanting them run, then you'll get the tests you need the first time around, with informative results (positive or negative or wherever you are on the scale) in fewer visits than if you didn't ask your smart friend. If you go into a specialist doctor's office without having a list of questions to ask, for your problem, you're not getting good value for your time/money. Covid exposed a number of shortcomings in the system, and if your malidy is at all weird, you're screwed.
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      > you go to your smart friend who taught himself through the Internet unless you're lucky enough to have actual doctor friend before you step foot in a doctor's office for anything weird because otherwise it's a waste of a copay This is by definition pennywise pound foolish, and this is a very specific example, so I think it's something you do. I'm going to assume you are a decently paid white collar worker (earning $70k+ a year) and tell you that you should not think this way.
      - fragmede 2y ago
        I'm going to assume you don't have any friends with ME/CFS/fibromyalgia/Long Covid or anything "interesting" and tell you that you're lucky to not have had to advocate hard for what people would consider decent level of care in the system yet. (only 70?)
miki123211 2y ago
THe value of a college degree is signaling. Your ability to graduate college signals to future employers that you have some combination of intelligence and work ethics. The more prestigious the institution, the stronger this signal is. At the top end of the scale, it's not even about course difficulty but admission requirements. A lot more people would be able to graduate from Harvard if given a place than can actually get into Harvard, legacy admissions who are still able to graduate being the perfect proof of this. There's research that shows that Harvard courses aren't that much more difficult than those at other, far less prestigious universities, but the admission requirements are far stricter. This phenomenon is a self-perpetuating feedback loop. If your average college graduate is slightly smarter than a non-graduate, employers will prefer graduates over non-graduates, as it's an easy thing to check. People notice how much of an advantage the college graduates have, so in the next generation, even more people choose college over other paths. This makes the gap between graduates and non-graduates even wider, which makes employers favor them more, which makes life harder for non-graduates, which causes even more people to go to college, and so it goes. At the top end, other things start to matter, it's advantageous for smart kids to mix and network with rich kids and vice versa, hence legacy admissions, but this is what matters for most graduates.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  > THe value of a college degree is signaling. It really isn't. If so, why the hell do UC Berkeley, SJSU, and UIUC CS grads outcompete Dartmouth grads in YC, Entrepreneurship in general, or the tech industry? Yes Harvard-type programs are exclusive, but they do not open that many more doors in our industry than a CalPoly or UW or Cal undergrad would have. And the college advantage goes away very fast with 4-5 years of work experience. I don't need code monkeys. Learning to code isn't a big deal. If that's all I needed, I'll just contract to Infosys or EPAM. What I and other employers need are CRITICAL THINKERS - people who can think on their feet about both technical and business problems. This requires building that critical thinking muscle. Some people learn that out in the wild, but a lot don't, and college is the first place they learn to build that muscle. College is also one of the first places you learn that you can't coast - for every grade inflating Harvard, there are 10 grade deflating UCs or public universities. We shouldn't put barriers for hard working people who have self taught themselves the ins and outs of the industry, but we shouldn't conversely automatically shit on the entire concept of tertiary education.

gessha 2y ago

Remember that AI was supposed to be solved by McCarty, Minsky and Shannon in the hot summer of 1956.