4 ms·

It's worth noting people probably reacted to this like they did with calculators, and perhaps, encyclopedias. I see this use a bit differently: as a teacher th

It's worth noting people probably reacted to this like they did with calculators, and perhaps, encyclopedias. I see this use a bit differently: as a teacher that scales (and is probably more accurate that a human, hallucinations and other concerns notwithstanding). I see my kids using it in a similar manner as described in this post, but I also see their curiosity piqued and them asking all kinds of theoretical and curious questions.

matwood 2y ago
If an LLM can answer the HW questions so easily, then maybe it's an issue with the HW and not the LLM/student.
- runjake 2y ago
  Why's that?
  - matwood 2y ago
    The student is growing up in a world of technology. How can the homework be designed leveraging LLMs? Can some curriculums be accelerated assuming LLMs provide a new base? What is the goal of teaching? Memorizing formulas or learning to think? Do students gain any value writing a book report or is there more value writing an essay about how a book relates to a students personal story? Anything that is formulaic in nature will likely end up automated. We should be teaching people to both leverage that fact and think creatively, even at 11 years old.
    - runjake 2y ago
      Great point.
    - champdebloom 2y ago
      I think there’s something to be said about building up a personal knowledge base and automaticity with retrieving basic information to free up your working memory for more complex problems. I’m still grappling with what this means now that LLMs have large enough context windows to ingest books.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  She is 11 ... if LLMs cannot answer questions for 11-year old homework maybe 98.76% of HN posts should not be about LLMs/AI :)
jillesvangurp 2y ago
I don't have kids. But I do have interns occasionally. Which are about the same age as my kids could have been if I had kids. Anyway, as their employer and mentor, I want them to use LLMs to deliver faster and better and I actively challenge them to do use that to the max and thus free up more time to do more important things. I mentored four over the summer and they did a nice job. I think the reality for teachers and students is that both should be using LLMs to their advantage at this point and openly so. Not mindlessly and hopefully in some supervised way. But it's only cheating if the teacher doesn't up their game and raises the ambition level. Which they would be negligent not to do at this point. I used to hate homework. All this mindless drudgery that you had to do at home and then submit to some poor overworked teacher that then had to manually verify all that stuff. Just not necessary anymore. A lot of the verification can be automated. And a lot of curiosity can be satisfied without teacher involvement. The teacher's role then becomes nudging that process along and making sure the student is challenged enough. Teachers should be tailoring exercises to individual students in a way that challenges them on their own level and then focus their efforts on verifying whether the student is actually at that level. That used to be hard because it didn't scale if they use the right tools. But now it can scale. They could be challenging individual students at their own level, whatever that is. But that requires using available tools more effectively.
- runjake 2y ago
  Many excellent points, thanks!

matwood 2y ago

If an LLM can answer the HW questions so easily, then maybe it's an issue with the HW and not the LLM/student.

runjake 2y ago
Why's that?
- matwood 2y ago
  The student is growing up in a world of technology. How can the homework be designed leveraging LLMs? Can some curriculums be accelerated assuming LLMs provide a new base? What is the goal of teaching? Memorizing formulas or learning to think? Do students gain any value writing a book report or is there more value writing an essay about how a book relates to a students personal story? Anything that is formulaic in nature will likely end up automated. We should be teaching people to both leverage that fact and think creatively, even at 11 years old.
  - runjake 2y ago
    Great point.
  - champdebloom 2y ago
    I think there’s something to be said about building up a personal knowledge base and automaticity with retrieving basic information to free up your working memory for more complex problems. I’m still grappling with what this means now that LLMs have large enough context windows to ingest books.
bdangubic 2y ago
She is 11 ... if LLMs cannot answer questions for 11-year old homework maybe 98.76% of HN posts should not be about LLMs/AI :)

jillesvangurp 2y ago

I don't have kids. But I do have interns occasionally. Which are about the same age as my kids could have been if I had kids. Anyway, as their employer and mentor, I want them to use LLMs to deliver faster and better and I actively challenge them to do use that to the max and thus free up more time to do more important things. I mentored four over the summer and they did a nice job. I think the reality for teachers and students is that both should be using LLMs to their advantage at this point and openly so. Not mindlessly and hopefully in some supervised way. But it's only cheating if the teacher doesn't up their game and raises the ambition level. Which they would be negligent not to do at this point. I used to hate homework. All this mindless drudgery that you had to do at home and then submit to some poor overworked teacher that then had to manually verify all that stuff. Just not necessary anymore. A lot of the verification can be automated. And a lot of curiosity can be satisfied without teacher involvement. The teacher's role then becomes nudging that process along and making sure the student is challenged enough. Teachers should be tailoring exercises to individual students in a way that challenges them on their own level and then focus their efforts on verifying whether the student is actually at that level. That used to be hard because it didn't scale if they use the right tools. But now it can scale. They could be challenging individual students at their own level, whatever that is. But that requires using available tools more effectively.

runjake 2y ago
Many excellent points, thanks!