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I started my teaching career a couple of years after this blog post was written, and finished it three years ago, and I saw all the same things. We've gone from
by cjs_ac 2y ago
I started my teaching career a couple of years after this blog post was written, and finished it three years ago, and I saw all the same things. We've gone from 'kids need to get to grips with computers' to 'computers need to meet users where they are', and UX designers have been more than happy to remove more and more functionality from user interfaces to follow this trend.
There's also a general aversion to anything that looks like logic or systems thinking, but that's a much older problem in education. Mathematics is, for most pupils, just a set of increasingly arcane rituals done with symbols on paper. The connection to the arithmetic of everyday life is tenuous at best.
People love LLMs because they can talk to them just like a person, and the LLM will talk back just like a person. The fact that the LLM is a bullshit artist that doesn't know what it's talking about isn't just inconsequential; it's a bonus, because it makes it even more lifelike.
- gh0stcat 2y agoWhat's crazy to me is it seems that we as a society have determined that it is far easier and more efficient to throw billions of dollars into a language token generating tool than teach people how to work with computers. It shows that most humans find it so psychologically painful to understand a system of rules and logical problem solving, that they choose to use an LLM, which in many instances is a far less efficient and salient solution.
- fragmede 2y agowe, as a society didn't get together and vote on "hey how should we best teach computers to people?" It came about through capitalism and having a free market of ideas. Framing it your way makes it seem weird.
- robocat 2y agogh0stcat didn't say any of that: it appears you are framing them. Guidelines: In Comments: Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
- basch 2y agothis downplays how interesting it is to teach computers to speak (and parse) english (and chinese and every language, and be able to translate between all) vs teaching humans to speak computer. speaking computer is precise. speaking human language is rich.
- ASalazarMX 2y agoOur generation dreamed too of speaking with a computer as if it was a personal assistant. SciFi is full of examples. Kids now just were lucky to live in an era where it's starting to look doable. But we still need to know how to use computers, even Scotty got down to a keyboard when needed.