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The same goes with human TAs that are extensively used in undergrad introductory programming classes. They can also be unreliable in many cases. 1. Provide stu

The same goes with human TAs that are extensively used in undergrad introductory programming classes. They can also be unreliable in many cases. 1. Provide students with the tools and knowledge to critically verify responses, either coming from an educator or a an AI agent. 2. Build more transparent AI agents that show how reliable they are on different types of queries. Our deployment showed that the Help Fix Code was less reliable, while other features were significantly better. But totally agree that we should be discussing the ethical implications much more.

lispisok 2y ago
My experience as a TA is students definitely do not have the knowledge to critically verify responses.
- majeedkazemi 2y ago
  Doesn't this make AI agents better? Given that human TAs do make mistakes a LOT, or in many cases are just unprepared (e.g. haven't done the programming assignment themselves) Human TA's have ego, AI doesn't. With proper tools, you should be able to steer an AI agent. I think both humans and AI agents both have their drawbacks and benefits. That's why the last section of the paper discusses that we even need to teach students (or provide tools) to help them decide where to use AI vs non-AI tools.
  - lispisok 2y ago
    TA's can say things like "I dont know, lets figure it out together". LLMs will spit out false information as easily and confidently as true information.
  - throw46365 2y ago
    Humans have their drawbacks? I have to say, I really urge you to consider the nature of your framing here. As you can tell I am quietly (or maybe not-so-quietly) appalled by the zeitgeist around generative AI, but even if I were not, I hope I would still see that this kind of linguistic framing is insensitive and self-defeating if not wholly inappropriate and demeaning if you want to see any co-operation from educators, who are as a broad picture, tired, dedicated, hopeful people who -- unlike LLMs -- can and do place significant moral and ethical value on teaching.
    - nucrow 2y ago
      I'm curious as to how you would frame it instead.
      - throw46365 2y ago
        I wouldn't put myself in that position. When the question is of the form "what do you think about the ethical implications of using AIs?" and the quick answer is "humans also make mistakes" I think the entire premise is on pretty shaky ground.
        nucrow 2y ago
        I think I may have been unclear. >... I would still see that this kind of linguistic framing is insensitive and self-defeating if not wholly inappropriate and demeaning if you want to see any co-operation from educators I think this was spot on, and I agree with you. I meant to ask: have you thought about a way to frame it, in which educators don't feel threatened but instead excited ? Given that, from my perspective, there's a great chance to enhance both the teaching and learning experience, as well as results
        throw46365 2y ago
        I don’t think I can answer because again I think I would not put myself in that position. I am going to retreat from this argument because this entire topic has me questioning my planned career change away from development towards training. If this is what people think about human teachers, what at all is the point?
exe34 2y ago
i agree with this. I keep trying to instill paranoia in the younger people I work with. even if you can see that the code is doing set_x(5), if it's crashing 20 lines down, I want you to either print or breakpoint the code here and really prove to me that x is now 5, before I look any further. sometimes set_x() might not do what you think. other times there might be something stomping on it from here to there, but I want to be absolutely sure, I don't share your faith in the documentation, I don't trust my own eyes to read the code, I just want to be 100% sure.
- throw46365 2y ago
  Right. So can an LLM convey that paranoia? The way a formal methods lecturer explained to me his concerns about the Y2K problem by talking about the embedded systems in the automated medication pumps treating his sick partner, and how without an MMU and code that could not be inspected, there was a non-zero chance that rolled-over dates would cause logging data to overwrite configuration data? Can an LLM convey a bit of anger and fear when talking about Therac-25? Even though a TA is often at a much lower teaching level than this, every single person who has ever learned anything has done so with the benefit of a teacher who "got through to them" either on a topic or on a principle. It's bonkers to compare TAs and LLMs simply on their error rate, when the errors TAs make are of a _totally_ different nature to the errors LLMs can make.
  - exe34 2y ago
    oh my point was that somebody has to strike the fear of god in them first before they start trusting the llm blindly. I know the llm can fake this kind of thing, especially if you put a prompt that forces "as an LLM, I'm probably going to shoot you in the foot randomly", but I'm sure they'll get used to ignoring it.
    - throw46365 2y ago
      > oh my point was that somebody has to strike the fear of god in them first before they start trusting the llm blindly. We agree on that :-)
throw46365 2y ago
> The same goes with human TAs that are extensively used in undergrad introductory programming classes. They can also be unreliable in many cases. Ehh. Those TAs, if they feel they might be wrong, can consult the lecturer/professor. And if they feel they might be wrong, they can just say so. IMO there is little to no comparison between a bad TA and a confidently-wrong LLM (having been a TA who knew to consult the professor if I felt I was not on solid ground). LLMs have no experience with teaching, they have no empathy for students grappling with the more challenging things, and they can gain no experience with teaching. Because it's not about spewing out text. It's about guiding and helping students with learning. For example: can an LLM sympathise or empathise with a cybernetics student who is grappling with the whole conceptual idea of laplace transforms? No. It can only spew out text with just the same level of investment as if it was writing a silly song about cats in galoshes on the Moon. I wish we were not in this "well humans also..." justification phase. It is genuinely disrespectful to actual real people and it's founded on projection. And in this case, it will also shut down the pipeline of academic progression if TAs are no longer hired. Why are we doing this to academia when the better approach would be giving TAs better training in actual teaching? More-senior academics doing this kind of research work is absolutely riddled with moral hazard: it's not your jobs immediately on the line. ETA: sooner or later, people in the generative AI market should really consider not just saying that we should talk about the ethical implications, but actually taking a stand on them. It's not enough to produce something that might cause a problem, rush it into production and just say "we might want to talk about the problems this might cause". Ethics are for everyone, not just ethicists.
- majeedkazemi 2y ago
  LLMs are tools. They're not everything. Yes, they can't sympathize or empathize. But if they can help a student to be more productive and learn at the same time, then I'm all in for designing them properly to be used in such educational contexts... "as an additional tool." We need both humans and AI. But there are problems with both, so that's why they can hopefully complement each other. Humans might have limited patience, availability, etc. and AI lacks empathy, and can be over-confident. > Why are we doing this to academia when the better approach would be giving TAs better training in actual teaching? Sure, that is a fantastic idea and some researchers have explored it. But, what's wrong with doing exploratory research, in a real-world deployment? In the paper we describe both where CodeAid failed and where students and educators found it useful, in a very honest way.
camdenreslink 2y ago
The TAs in my undergraduate intro to programming class were very knowledgable and reliable, but that is a sample size of 1.
- tmpz22 2y ago
  The Grad student teachers and TAs in my math courses - including discrete math - were at best ambivalent to us lesser Computer Science students and at worst under-trained and contemptuous. University of Oregon ~2014ish
batch12 2y ago
> The same goes with human TAs that are extensively used in undergrad introductory programming classes. They can also be unreliable in many cases I think one difference is that human TAs can, theoretically, be held accountable for their reliability whereas a holding a LLM accountable is a little more difficult.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

lispisok 2y ago

My experience as a TA is students definitely do not have the knowledge to critically verify responses.

majeedkazemi 2y ago
Doesn't this make AI agents better? Given that human TAs do make mistakes a LOT, or in many cases are just unprepared (e.g. haven't done the programming assignment themselves) Human TA's have ego, AI doesn't. With proper tools, you should be able to steer an AI agent. I think both humans and AI agents both have their drawbacks and benefits. That's why the last section of the paper discusses that we even need to teach students (or provide tools) to help them decide where to use AI vs non-AI tools.
- lispisok 2y ago
  TA's can say things like "I dont know, lets figure it out together". LLMs will spit out false information as easily and confidently as true information.
- throw46365 2y ago
  Humans have their drawbacks? I have to say, I really urge you to consider the nature of your framing here. As you can tell I am quietly (or maybe not-so-quietly) appalled by the zeitgeist around generative AI, but even if I were not, I hope I would still see that this kind of linguistic framing is insensitive and self-defeating if not wholly inappropriate and demeaning if you want to see any co-operation from educators, who are as a broad picture, tired, dedicated, hopeful people who -- unlike LLMs -- can and do place significant moral and ethical value on teaching.
  - nucrow 2y ago
    I'm curious as to how you would frame it instead.
    - throw46365 2y ago
      I wouldn't put myself in that position. When the question is of the form "what do you think about the ethical implications of using AIs?" and the quick answer is "humans also make mistakes" I think the entire premise is on pretty shaky ground.
      - nucrow 2y ago
        I think I may have been unclear. >... I would still see that this kind of linguistic framing is insensitive and self-defeating if not wholly inappropriate and demeaning if you want to see any co-operation from educators I think this was spot on, and I agree with you. I meant to ask: have you thought about a way to frame it, in which educators don't feel threatened but instead excited ? Given that, from my perspective, there's a great chance to enhance both the teaching and learning experience, as well as results
        throw46365 2y ago
        I don’t think I can answer because again I think I would not put myself in that position. I am going to retreat from this argument because this entire topic has me questioning my planned career change away from development towards training. If this is what people think about human teachers, what at all is the point?

exe34 2y ago

i agree with this. I keep trying to instill paranoia in the younger people I work with. even if you can see that the code is doing set_x(5), if it's crashing 20 lines down, I want you to either print or breakpoint the code here and really prove to me that x is now 5, before I look any further. sometimes set_x() might not do what you think. other times there might be something stomping on it from here to there, but I want to be absolutely sure, I don't share your faith in the documentation, I don't trust my own eyes to read the code, I just want to be 100% sure.

throw46365 2y ago
Right. So can an LLM convey that paranoia? The way a formal methods lecturer explained to me his concerns about the Y2K problem by talking about the embedded systems in the automated medication pumps treating his sick partner, and how without an MMU and code that could not be inspected, there was a non-zero chance that rolled-over dates would cause logging data to overwrite configuration data? Can an LLM convey a bit of anger and fear when talking about Therac-25? Even though a TA is often at a much lower teaching level than this, every single person who has ever learned anything has done so with the benefit of a teacher who "got through to them" either on a topic or on a principle. It's bonkers to compare TAs and LLMs simply on their error rate, when the errors TAs make are of a _totally_ different nature to the errors LLMs can make.
- exe34 2y ago
  oh my point was that somebody has to strike the fear of god in them first before they start trusting the llm blindly. I know the llm can fake this kind of thing, especially if you put a prompt that forces "as an LLM, I'm probably going to shoot you in the foot randomly", but I'm sure they'll get used to ignoring it.
  - throw46365 2y ago
    > oh my point was that somebody has to strike the fear of god in them first before they start trusting the llm blindly. We agree on that :-)

throw46365 2y ago

> The same goes with human TAs that are extensively used in undergrad introductory programming classes. They can also be unreliable in many cases. Ehh. Those TAs, if they feel they might be wrong, can consult the lecturer/professor. And if they feel they might be wrong, they can just say so. IMO there is little to no comparison between a bad TA and a confidently-wrong LLM (having been a TA who knew to consult the professor if I felt I was not on solid ground). LLMs have no experience with teaching, they have no empathy for students grappling with the more challenging things, and they can gain no experience with teaching. Because it's not about spewing out text. It's about guiding and helping students with learning. For example: can an LLM sympathise or empathise with a cybernetics student who is grappling with the whole conceptual idea of laplace transforms? No. It can only spew out text with just the same level of investment as if it was writing a silly song about cats in galoshes on the Moon. I wish we were not in this "well humans also..." justification phase. It is genuinely disrespectful to actual real people and it's founded on projection. And in this case, it will also shut down the pipeline of academic progression if TAs are no longer hired. Why are we doing this to academia when the better approach would be giving TAs better training in actual teaching? More-senior academics doing this kind of research work is absolutely riddled with moral hazard: it's not your jobs immediately on the line. ETA: sooner or later, people in the generative AI market should really consider not just saying that we should talk about the ethical implications, but actually taking a stand on them. It's not enough to produce something that might cause a problem, rush it into production and just say "we might want to talk about the problems this might cause". Ethics are for everyone, not just ethicists.

majeedkazemi 2y ago
LLMs are tools. They're not everything. Yes, they can't sympathize or empathize. But if they can help a student to be more productive and learn at the same time, then I'm all in for designing them properly to be used in such educational contexts... "as an additional tool." We need both humans and AI. But there are problems with both, so that's why they can hopefully complement each other. Humans might have limited patience, availability, etc. and AI lacks empathy, and can be over-confident. > Why are we doing this to academia when the better approach would be giving TAs better training in actual teaching? Sure, that is a fantastic idea and some researchers have explored it. But, what's wrong with doing exploratory research, in a real-world deployment? In the paper we describe both where CodeAid failed and where students and educators found it useful, in a very honest way.

camdenreslink 2y ago

The TAs in my undergraduate intro to programming class were very knowledgable and reliable, but that is a sample size of 1.

tmpz22 2y ago
The Grad student teachers and TAs in my math courses - including discrete math - were at best ambivalent to us lesser Computer Science students and at worst under-trained and contemptuous. University of Oregon ~2014ish

batch12 2y ago

> The same goes with human TAs that are extensively used in undergrad introductory programming classes. They can also be unreliable in many cases I think one difference is that human TAs can, theoretically, be held accountable for their reliability whereas a holding a LLM accountable is a little more difficult.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]