4 ms·

I suspect "Education, Instruction and Library" bar on the graph mostly amounts to cheating and more broadly defeating the point of unsupervised study. But it's

by varjag 2y ago

I suspect "Education, Instruction and Library" bar on the graph mostly amounts to cheating and more broadly defeating the point of unsupervised study. But it's nice we have a metric for that now.

simonw 2y ago
I'm trying to find tasks that look like they're equivalent to cheating on homework, but it's not clear to me which categories might apply. https://lite.datasette.io/?metadata=https://gist.github.com/simonw/37c9ef4ad2404b9c3d7ddb639ccd3266&url=https://static.simonwillison.net/static/cors-allow/2025/release_2025_03_27.db#/release_2025_03_27/task_pct_v2?_filter_column_1=task_name&_filter_op_1=contains&_filter_value_1=writ&_filter_column_2=task_name&_filter_op_2=notlike&_filter_value_2=%25program%25&_filter_column=task_name&_filter_op=notlike&_filter_value=%25code%25&_sort=pct&_sort_by_desc=on https://lite.datasette.io/?metadata=https://gist.github.com/... shows everything in task_pct_v2 which mentions "writ" but excludes "code" or "program" to try to filter out the code stuff.
nine_k 2y ago
I think this is overly cynical. There are a number of ways an LLM can help actual education and research, and people are willing to use the LLMs this way, as opposed to cheating. An LLM can be a really great (written) language coach / sparring partner. It could give you a lot of sensible, valuable practice in a foreign language it knows well, in a free form, while noticing, explaining, and fixing your mistakes. An LLM may be great at searching, analyzing, and summarizing large numbers of natural-language texts. It could be a great paper research assistant, helping you find relevant articles and books, or relevant passages in them, finding similarities, contrasts, prerequisites and consequences, agreement and objections. Unsupervised study with unwilling subjects is a pretty poor idea, LLMs or not; they will spend their effort on cheating, not learning. If you want different outcomes, work on motivation first, the rest will fall into place.

by varjag 2y ago

I suspect "Education, Instruction and Library" bar on the graph mostly amounts to cheating and more broadly defeating the point of unsupervised study. But it's nice we have a metric for that now.

simonw 2y ago

I'm trying to find tasks that look like they're equivalent to cheating on homework, but it's not clear to me which categories might apply. https://lite.datasette.io/?metadata=https://gist.github.com/simonw/37c9ef4ad2404b9c3d7ddb639ccd3266&url=https://static.simonwillison.net/static/cors-allow/2025/release_2025_03_27.db#/release_2025_03_27/task_pct_v2?_filter_column_1=task_name&_filter_op_1=contains&_filter_value_1=writ&_filter_column_2=task_name&_filter_op_2=notlike&_filter_value_2=%25program%25&_filter_column=task_name&_filter_op=notlike&_filter_value=%25code%25&_sort=pct&_sort_by_desc=on https://lite.datasette.io/?metadata=https://gist.github.com/... shows everything in task_pct_v2 which mentions "writ" but excludes "code" or "program" to try to filter out the code stuff.

nine_k 2y ago

I think this is overly cynical. There are a number of ways an LLM can help actual education and research, and people are willing to use the LLMs this way, as opposed to cheating. An LLM can be a really great (written) language coach / sparring partner. It could give you a lot of sensible, valuable practice in a foreign language it knows well, in a free form, while noticing, explaining, and fixing your mistakes. An LLM may be great at searching, analyzing, and summarizing large numbers of natural-language texts. It could be a great paper research assistant, helping you find relevant articles and books, or relevant passages in them, finding similarities, contrasts, prerequisites and consequences, agreement and objections. Unsupervised study with unwilling subjects is a pretty poor idea, LLMs or not; they will spend their effort on cheating, not learning. If you want different outcomes, work on motivation first, the rest will fall into place.