6 ms·

AI has already rendered academic take-home assignments moot. No other tech has had an impact like that, even the internet.

devmor 1y ago
What? The internet did that ages ago. We just pretended it didn't because some students didn't know how to use Google.
- Davidzheng 1y ago
  disagree? I had to write essays in high school. I don't think the kids now need to if they don't want to.
- atleastoptimal 1y ago
  Everyone knows how to use Google. There's a difference between a corpus of data available online and an intelligent chatbot that can answer any permutation of questions with high accuracy with no manual searching or effort.
  - simianwords 1y ago
    Do you really think the jump from books to freely globally accessible data instantly available is a smaller jump than internet to ChatGPT? This is insane!!
    - raincole 1y ago
      It's not just smaller, but neglectable (in comparison). In the internet era you had to parse the questions with your own brain. You just didn't necessarily need to solve them yourself. In ChatGPT era you don't even need to read the questions. At all. The questions could be written in a language you don't understand, and you still are able generate plausible answers to them.
      - simianwords 1y ago
        To a person from the 1920's which one is more impressive? The internet or chatgpt?
        devmor 1y ago
        I don't think that's really a useful question, honestly. If you asked a person from the 1920's to choose what was more impressive between a Microwave oven and cellular communication (both consequences of the invention of radar), they'd probably pick the oven.
        raincole 1y ago
        Obvious ChatGPT. I don't know how it is even a question... if you showed GPT3.5 to people from < 20th centuries there would've been a worldwide religion around it.
        simianwords 1y ago
        Interesting perspective.
        mdaniel 1y ago
        I recall the kerfuffle about (IIRC) llama where the engineer lost his mind thinking they had spawned life in a machine and felt it was "too dangerous to release," so it's not a ludicrous take. I would hope that the first person to ask "LLM Jesus" how many Rs are in strawberry would have torpedoed the religion, but (a) I've seen dumber mind viruses (b) it hasn't yet
        dragonwriter 1y ago
        It wasn't Llama (Meta), it was LaMDA (Google). https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/google-engineer-claims-ai-chatbot-is-sentient-why-that-matters/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/google-engineer-c...
  - geraneum 1y ago
    > Everyone knows how to use Google. Everyone knows how to type questions into a chat box, yet whenever something doesn’t work as advertised with the LLMs, the response here is, “you’re holding it wrong”.
- klipklop 1y ago
  You are mistaken, Google could not write a bespoke English essay for you. Complete with intentional mistakes to throw off the professor.
  - a2128 1y ago
    In English class we had a lot of book-reading and writing texts about those books. Sparknotes and similar sites allowed you to skip reading and get a distilled understanding of its contents, similar to interacting with an LLM
callc 1y ago
A pessimistic/realistic view of post high school education - credentials are proof of able to do a certain amount of hard work, used as an easy filter for companies while hiring. I expect universities to adapt quickly, lest lose their whole business as degrees will not carry the same meaning to employers.
- amanaplanacanal 1y ago
  Maybe universities can go back to being temples of learning instead of credential mills. I can dream, can't I?
ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 1y ago
> AI has already rendered academic take-home assignments moot Not really, there are plenty of things that LLMs cannot do that a professor could make his students do. It is just a asymmetric attack on the professor's (or whomever is grading) time to do that. IMO, credentials shouldn't be given to those who test or submit assignments without proctoring (a lot of schools allow this).
- mofeien 1y ago
  > there are plenty of things that LLMs cannot do that a professor could make his students do. Name three?
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - c0balt 1y ago
    1. Make the student(s) randomly have to present their results on a weekly basis. If you get caught for cheating at this point, at least in my uni with a zero tolerance policy, you instantly fail the course. 2. Make take home stuff only a requirement to be able to participate in the final exam. This effectively means cheating on them will only hinder you and not affect your grading directly. 3. Make take home stuff optional and completely detached from grading. Put everything into the final exam. My uni does a mix them on different courses. Especially two and three though have a significant negative impact on passing rates as they tend to push everything onto one single exam instead of spread out work over the semester.
- NitpickLawyer 1y ago
  > Not really, there are plenty of things that LLMs cannot do that a professor could make his students do. Could you offer some examples? I'm having a hard time thinking of what could be at the intersection of "hard enough for SotA LLMs" yet "easy enough for students (who are still learning, not experts in their fields, etc)".
  - c0balt 1y ago

devmor 1y ago

What? The internet did that ages ago. We just pretended it didn't because some students didn't know how to use Google.

Davidzheng 1y ago
disagree? I had to write essays in high school. I don't think the kids now need to if they don't want to.
atleastoptimal 1y ago
Everyone knows how to use Google. There's a difference between a corpus of data available online and an intelligent chatbot that can answer any permutation of questions with high accuracy with no manual searching or effort.
- simianwords 1y ago
  Do you really think the jump from books to freely globally accessible data instantly available is a smaller jump than internet to ChatGPT? This is insane!!
  - raincole 1y ago
    It's not just smaller, but neglectable (in comparison). In the internet era you had to parse the questions with your own brain. You just didn't necessarily need to solve them yourself. In ChatGPT era you don't even need to read the questions. At all. The questions could be written in a language you don't understand, and you still are able generate plausible answers to them.
    - simianwords 1y ago
      To a person from the 1920's which one is more impressive? The internet or chatgpt?
      - devmor 1y ago
        I don't think that's really a useful question, honestly. If you asked a person from the 1920's to choose what was more impressive between a Microwave oven and cellular communication (both consequences of the invention of radar), they'd probably pick the oven.
      - raincole 1y ago
        Obvious ChatGPT. I don't know how it is even a question... if you showed GPT3.5 to people from < 20th centuries there would've been a worldwide religion around it.
        simianwords 1y ago
        Interesting perspective.
        mdaniel 1y ago
        I recall the kerfuffle about (IIRC) llama where the engineer lost his mind thinking they had spawned life in a machine and felt it was "too dangerous to release," so it's not a ludicrous take. I would hope that the first person to ask "LLM Jesus" how many Rs are in strawberry would have torpedoed the religion, but (a) I've seen dumber mind viruses (b) it hasn't yet
        dragonwriter 1y ago
        It wasn't Llama (Meta), it was LaMDA (Google). https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/google-engineer-claims-ai-chatbot-is-sentient-why-that-matters/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/google-engineer-c...
- geraneum 1y ago
  > Everyone knows how to use Google. Everyone knows how to type questions into a chat box, yet whenever something doesn’t work as advertised with the LLMs, the response here is, “you’re holding it wrong”.
klipklop 1y ago
You are mistaken, Google could not write a bespoke English essay for you. Complete with intentional mistakes to throw off the professor.
- a2128 1y ago
  In English class we had a lot of book-reading and writing texts about those books. Sparknotes and similar sites allowed you to skip reading and get a distilled understanding of its contents, similar to interacting with an LLM

callc 1y ago

A pessimistic/realistic view of post high school education - credentials are proof of able to do a certain amount of hard work, used as an easy filter for companies while hiring. I expect universities to adapt quickly, lest lose their whole business as degrees will not carry the same meaning to employers.

amanaplanacanal 1y ago
Maybe universities can go back to being temples of learning instead of credential mills. I can dream, can't I?

ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 1y ago

> AI has already rendered academic take-home assignments moot Not really, there are plenty of things that LLMs cannot do that a professor could make his students do. It is just a asymmetric attack on the professor's (or whomever is grading) time to do that. IMO, credentials shouldn't be given to those who test or submit assignments without proctoring (a lot of schools allow this).

mofeien 1y ago
> there are plenty of things that LLMs cannot do that a professor could make his students do. Name three?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- c0balt 1y ago
  1. Make the student(s) randomly have to present their results on a weekly basis. If you get caught for cheating at this point, at least in my uni with a zero tolerance policy, you instantly fail the course. 2. Make take home stuff only a requirement to be able to participate in the final exam. This effectively means cheating on them will only hinder you and not affect your grading directly. 3. Make take home stuff optional and completely detached from grading. Put everything into the final exam. My uni does a mix them on different courses. Especially two and three though have a significant negative impact on passing rates as they tend to push everything onto one single exam instead of spread out work over the semester.
NitpickLawyer 1y ago
> Not really, there are plenty of things that LLMs cannot do that a professor could make his students do. Could you offer some examples? I'm having a hard time thinking of what could be at the intersection of "hard enough for SotA LLMs" yet "easy enough for students (who are still learning, not experts in their fields, etc)".
- c0balt 1y ago