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Yes, learning to write is an incredibly useful skill. Learning to communicate effectively, how to synthesize information into a coherent essay, how to organize

Yes, learning to write is an incredibly useful skill. Learning to communicate effectively, how to synthesize information into a coherent essay, how to organize your thoughts and put them down on paper, all essential skills. How is this even a question?

Swizec 2y ago
Yes and none of that is a high school essay. They’re an extremely poor teaching tool of effective communication. As evidence I submit ChatGPT’s own waffly style of writing. It learned that from humans who on average are poor communicators. The “high school/college essay” style of writing is something new employees have to actively unlearn in their first few years in the workforce. edit: If I was a teacher right now, I would give my students a 2000 word essay written by ChatGPT on $topic and ask them to redline the printout. This teaches them the actually useful skill of editing and fact checking since it looks like producing words has become commoditized.
- blactuary 2y ago
  Say what? That is exactly what a high school essay is. Many of them are of poor quality, because students need to learn. Learning algebra in school and getting a bunch of problems wrong doesn't mean you are not learning math. You don't learn to do anything without failing at it initially. ChatGPT has a "waffly" style of writing because it is incapable of thinking, it's simply trying to predict the next word.
  - Swizec 2y ago
    I realized we probably come from different educational environments. Maybe mine just wasn’t as effective as yours. If you learned good/effective communications skills from high school essays, kudos! I did not, but I did enjoy the process and writing essays was one of my fav activities in school. Just that the “effective” part came way later :)
    - blactuary 2y ago
      You were indeed learning to communicate more effectively. Maybe more slowly than was possible if you were in a very poor educational environment, but you were learning. And more importantly and in context: you were learning in a way that AI/LLM cannot. Let's try to ensure that no one else has to learn in a substandard environment instead of abandoning teaching kids how to write and communicate and replace it with something that can never do it as well as a human.
- blactuary 2y ago
  "producing words has become commoditized" It absolutely has not
  - Swizec 2y ago
    It definitely has. It’s been commoditized for years actually. Just go on upwork and see the sad rates that copywriters ask for. Producing words is super commoditized. Producing good words not so much.
    - blactuary 2y ago
      I mean, I assumed that "good" was implied. Anything can be done poorly.

Swizec 2y ago

Yes and none of that is a high school essay. They’re an extremely poor teaching tool of effective communication. As evidence I submit ChatGPT’s own waffly style of writing. It learned that from humans who on average are poor communicators. The “high school/college essay” style of writing is something new employees have to actively unlearn in their first few years in the workforce. edit: If I was a teacher right now, I would give my students a 2000 word essay written by ChatGPT on $topic and ask them to redline the printout. This teaches them the actually useful skill of editing and fact checking since it looks like producing words has become commoditized.

blactuary 2y ago
Say what? That is exactly what a high school essay is. Many of them are of poor quality, because students need to learn. Learning algebra in school and getting a bunch of problems wrong doesn't mean you are not learning math. You don't learn to do anything without failing at it initially. ChatGPT has a "waffly" style of writing because it is incapable of thinking, it's simply trying to predict the next word.
- Swizec 2y ago
  I realized we probably come from different educational environments. Maybe mine just wasn’t as effective as yours. If you learned good/effective communications skills from high school essays, kudos! I did not, but I did enjoy the process and writing essays was one of my fav activities in school. Just that the “effective” part came way later :)
  - blactuary 2y ago
    You were indeed learning to communicate more effectively. Maybe more slowly than was possible if you were in a very poor educational environment, but you were learning. And more importantly and in context: you were learning in a way that AI/LLM cannot. Let's try to ensure that no one else has to learn in a substandard environment instead of abandoning teaching kids how to write and communicate and replace it with something that can never do it as well as a human.
blactuary 2y ago
"producing words has become commoditized" It absolutely has not
- Swizec 2y ago
  It definitely has. It’s been commoditized for years actually. Just go on upwork and see the sad rates that copywriters ask for. Producing words is super commoditized. Producing good words not so much.
  - blactuary 2y ago
    I mean, I assumed that "good" was implied. Anything can be done poorly.