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> And as a last point, I fear very much what’s going on in schools. My son is in school. And the teacher literally said they need to use an LLM otherwise they w

> And as a last point, I fear very much what’s going on in schools. My son is in school. And the teacher literally said they need to use an LLM otherwise they won’t score high enough because the other pupils are using LLMs and the teacher is using an LLM to grade/check it. This is ridiculous. And if you think that’s okay or you don’t see a serious problem with this, then that’s an even greater problem. If that is true, it is indeed a serious problem.

hackyhacky 1y ago
I hear you, but also we need to ask why is it a problem? Used to be, it was considered critically important that students learn to write in cursive and to multiply 3 digit numbers in their head. I can't do either, and I suspect many folks these days can't either. The world has not ended. I also can't tie a square knot, lasso a steed, or mend a fence. School assignments have always been a waste of time. Essay-writing is not a critical skill, and I'm not sure much is lost if LLMs do it for us.
- thatcat 1y ago
  Pretty sure forming a logical argument is a critical skill, just add it to the list tho.
- SomeoneOnTheWeb 1y ago
  Actually the world is more or less ending because of that. People lack more and more critical thinking skills because they aren't taught about that in school. Sure multiplying 3-digit numbers is not really useful in everyday's life, but the important part is not the knowledge itself, it's the capacity to think and solve problems.
  - aianus 1y ago
    You can easily measure the capacity to think and solve problems with paper-and-pencil exams every week or two not hours of daily busywork.
    - ben_w 1y ago
      If such tests actually measured the capacity to think and solve problems. Thing is, LLMs beat humans on the words of such tests (if not the pencil part), and indeed basically all stabdardised tests at every level.
- daledavies 1y ago
  This is the digital divide, where students from more wealthy backgrounds can afford access to better LLM subscriptions, and are able to achieve more "academically".
- drewcoo 1y ago
  > Essay-writing is not a critical skill If not that then what? Prompt engineering?
  - hackyhacky 1y ago
    Maybe nothing at all. Maybe human mind is obsolete. What then?
- xnx 1y ago
  > Essay-writing is not a critical skill, Essay writing is mainly about organizing thoughts logically. That's pretty important.
energy123 1y ago
Students will need to use the same LLM as their teacher, since LLMs are biased to grade their own outputs higher. Imagine getting downgraded because the substrings "Honestly?" and "—" didn't constitute 3.2% of your submission.
JustinCS 1y ago
This sounds like an assignment to learn to use LLMs, which as an isolated assignment sounds reasonable. Students should learn how to use tools of all kinds to maximize their effectiveness. It might be a bigger problem if all assignments are done like this but I doubt that's the case.
zveyaeyv3sfye 1y ago
The school situation is indeed in serious problems. I just read this piece the other day with countless witnesses from teachers in the US: https://www.404media.co/teachers-are-not-ok-ai-chatgpt/ https://www.404media.co/teachers-are-not-ok-ai-chatgpt/
at_compile_time 1y ago
Any examination that isn't done in person on general course material (nothing an LLM could prepare for you) is just stubborn refusal to protect students from themselves in an age where anything else can be faked. Graded homework and take-home assignments are dead as useful pedagogical tools.
- xnx 1y ago
  Death of homework could be a great thing. The education system teaching that schoolwork must be done at home is conditioning future workers to accept working late and taking their work home.
  - ModernMech 1y ago
    You're conflating education work with productive work. School is about learning, for one's personal fulfilment. You're supposed to do that mostly on your own time. School is just a way to keep you motivated to learn a particular thing, and the notion of homework is necessary to reinforce that learning happens on your own and in a classroom. But actually mostly on your own. 45 minutes twice a week in a classroom is just not enough time to learn anything of substance and depth. The Thursday-to-Tuesday memory loss is especially profound; Tuesday class is mostly spent reminding everyone who didn't do their homework what we had talked about last Thursday.
anal_reactor 1y ago
I attended one of best high schools in the area. One teacher, when I asked him what I can do about my failing grade, told me "you can go hang yourself". Why was I getting a failing grade in the first place? Well, it was normal that three quarters of the class would be failing his tests. That's just the kind of teacher he was. The PE teacher thought that his role was to teach us discipline based on fear. Later I heard a fun story about him getting a new class and thinking that one of the girls was a student, while she was actually the mother of one of the students. She saw the students being yelled at for 45 minutes straight, she got yelled personally at and called retarded. Of course nothing happened to him. The literature teacher yelled at us so hard that we were literally afraid of talking to her. She hated us, and at some point made that openly clear, by being mean on purpose. She never gave me more than "barely passing", even though at the standardized test I got a near-perfect score. Once she did a test, threw the paper away, and assigned us grades by how much she liked each student. I brought up this story during reunion, and was told "she actually prepared us for how we'd be treated in college and adult life". And that was one of the best schools that always took the most talented students from the region. In this context, having two LLMs talk to each other really isn't a bad thing.
- raverbashing 1y ago
  Hence why my sympathy to teachers is limited. Not zero, for sure. But there's a limit
- yubblegum 1y ago
  This is so over the top that you might as well name and shame here to lend credibility to your story. What school in what "area" are you talking about?
  - anal_reactor 1y ago
    Yeah and dox myself. No thank you. It's not "over the top". It's the reality of the education system in Eastern Europe.
    - 1y ago
alainx277 1y ago
I've heard this often recently, we jokingly call it the "dead classroom theory": the students use LLMs to solve the assignment and the teacher uses an LLM to grade it.

hackyhacky 1y ago

I hear you, but also we need to ask why is it a problem? Used to be, it was considered critically important that students learn to write in cursive and to multiply 3 digit numbers in their head. I can't do either, and I suspect many folks these days can't either. The world has not ended. I also can't tie a square knot, lasso a steed, or mend a fence. School assignments have always been a waste of time. Essay-writing is not a critical skill, and I'm not sure much is lost if LLMs do it for us.

thatcat 1y ago
Pretty sure forming a logical argument is a critical skill, just add it to the list tho.
SomeoneOnTheWeb 1y ago
Actually the world is more or less ending because of that. People lack more and more critical thinking skills because they aren't taught about that in school. Sure multiplying 3-digit numbers is not really useful in everyday's life, but the important part is not the knowledge itself, it's the capacity to think and solve problems.
- aianus 1y ago
  You can easily measure the capacity to think and solve problems with paper-and-pencil exams every week or two not hours of daily busywork.
  - ben_w 1y ago
    If such tests actually measured the capacity to think and solve problems. Thing is, LLMs beat humans on the words of such tests (if not the pencil part), and indeed basically all stabdardised tests at every level.
daledavies 1y ago
This is the digital divide, where students from more wealthy backgrounds can afford access to better LLM subscriptions, and are able to achieve more "academically".
drewcoo 1y ago
> Essay-writing is not a critical skill If not that then what? Prompt engineering?
- hackyhacky 1y ago
  Maybe nothing at all. Maybe human mind is obsolete. What then?
xnx 1y ago
> Essay-writing is not a critical skill, Essay writing is mainly about organizing thoughts logically. That's pretty important.

energy123 1y ago

Students will need to use the same LLM as their teacher, since LLMs are biased to grade their own outputs higher. Imagine getting downgraded because the substrings "Honestly?" and "—" didn't constitute 3.2% of your submission.

JustinCS 1y ago

This sounds like an assignment to learn to use LLMs, which as an isolated assignment sounds reasonable. Students should learn how to use tools of all kinds to maximize their effectiveness. It might be a bigger problem if all assignments are done like this but I doubt that's the case.

zveyaeyv3sfye 1y ago

The school situation is indeed in serious problems. I just read this piece the other day with countless witnesses from teachers in the US: https://www.404media.co/teachers-are-not-ok-ai-chatgpt/ https://www.404media.co/teachers-are-not-ok-ai-chatgpt/

at_compile_time 1y ago

Any examination that isn't done in person on general course material (nothing an LLM could prepare for you) is just stubborn refusal to protect students from themselves in an age where anything else can be faked. Graded homework and take-home assignments are dead as useful pedagogical tools.

xnx 1y ago
Death of homework could be a great thing. The education system teaching that schoolwork must be done at home is conditioning future workers to accept working late and taking their work home.
- ModernMech 1y ago
  You're conflating education work with productive work. School is about learning, for one's personal fulfilment. You're supposed to do that mostly on your own time. School is just a way to keep you motivated to learn a particular thing, and the notion of homework is necessary to reinforce that learning happens on your own and in a classroom. But actually mostly on your own. 45 minutes twice a week in a classroom is just not enough time to learn anything of substance and depth. The Thursday-to-Tuesday memory loss is especially profound; Tuesday class is mostly spent reminding everyone who didn't do their homework what we had talked about last Thursday.

anal_reactor 1y ago

I attended one of best high schools in the area. One teacher, when I asked him what I can do about my failing grade, told me "you can go hang yourself". Why was I getting a failing grade in the first place? Well, it was normal that three quarters of the class would be failing his tests. That's just the kind of teacher he was. The PE teacher thought that his role was to teach us discipline based on fear. Later I heard a fun story about him getting a new class and thinking that one of the girls was a student, while she was actually the mother of one of the students. She saw the students being yelled at for 45 minutes straight, she got yelled personally at and called retarded. Of course nothing happened to him. The literature teacher yelled at us so hard that we were literally afraid of talking to her. She hated us, and at some point made that openly clear, by being mean on purpose. She never gave me more than "barely passing", even though at the standardized test I got a near-perfect score. Once she did a test, threw the paper away, and assigned us grades by how much she liked each student. I brought up this story during reunion, and was told "she actually prepared us for how we'd be treated in college and adult life". And that was one of the best schools that always took the most talented students from the region. In this context, having two LLMs talk to each other really isn't a bad thing.

raverbashing 1y ago
Hence why my sympathy to teachers is limited. Not zero, for sure. But there's a limit
yubblegum 1y ago
This is so over the top that you might as well name and shame here to lend credibility to your story. What school in what "area" are you talking about?
- anal_reactor 1y ago
  Yeah and dox myself. No thank you. It's not "over the top". It's the reality of the education system in Eastern Europe.
  - 1y ago

alainx277 1y ago

I've heard this often recently, we jokingly call it the "dead classroom theory": the students use LLMs to solve the assignment and the teacher uses an LLM to grade it.