4 ms·

This is bad in tech. But at least we are (relatively) well equipped to deal with it. My partner teaches at a small college. These people are absolutely lost, w

by lukev 6mo ago

This is bad in tech. But at least we are (relatively) well equipped to deal with it. My partner teaches at a small college. These people are absolutely lost, with administration totally sold on the idea that "AI is the future" while lacking any kind of coherent theory about how to apply it to pedagogy. Administrators are typically uncritically buying into the hype, professors are a mix of compliant and (understandably) completely belligerent to the idea. Students are being told conflicting information -- in one class that "ChatGPT is cheating" and in the very next class that using AI is mandatory for a good grade. Its an absolute disaster.

deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
chatmasta 6mo ago
The wild part is they’re having this reaction while using the most rigid and limited interfaces to the LLMs. Imagine when the capabilities of coding agents surface up to these professions. It’s already starting to happen with Claude Cowork. I swear if I see another presentation with that default theme…
- iugtmkbdfil834 6mo ago
  This. As annoying as all sorts of 'safety features' are, the sheer amount of effort that goes into further restricting that on the corporate wrapper side side makes llm nigh unusable. How can those kids even begin to get the idea of what it can do, when it seems like its severely locked down.
  - pjc50 6mo ago
    Could you provide an example of such a thing that is prevented?
    - iugtmkbdfil834 6mo ago
      Sure. In the instance I am aware of, SQL ( and xml and few others )files are explicitly verbotten, but you can upload them as text and reference them that way; references to personal information like DOB immediately stops the inference with no clear error as to why, but referencing the same info any other way allows it go on. It is all small things, but none of those small things are captured anywhere so whoever is on the other end has to 'discover' through trial and error.
webdood90 6mo ago
> These people are absolutely lost, with administration totally sold on the idea that "AI is the future" ... Doesn't sound that different from my tech job
jakelsaunders94 6mo ago
This is really interesting. I've been out of education for a long time, but I was wondering how they were dealing with the advent of AI. Are exams still a thing? Do people do coursework now that you can spew out competent sounding stuff in seconds?
- Al-Khwarizmi 6mo ago
  I teach CS at a university in Spain. Most people here are in denial. It is obvious to me that we need to go back to grading based on in-person exams, but in our last university reform (which tried to copy the US/UK in many aspects) there was so much political posturing and indoctrination about exams being evil and coursework having to take the fore that now most people just can't admit the truth before their own eyes. And for those of us that do admit it, we have a limited range of maneuver because grading coursework is often a requirement that emanates from above and we can't fundamentally change it. So in most courses nothing has changed in the way we grade. Suddenly coursework grades have gone up sharply. Anyone with working neurons know why, but in the best case, nothing of consequence is done. In the worst case (fortunately uncommon), there are people trusting snake oil detectors and probably unfairly failing some students. Oh, and I forgot: there are also some people who are increasing the difficulty of the coursework in line with LLMs. Which I guess more or less makes sense... Except that if a student wants to learn without using them, then they suddenly will find assignments to be out of their league. So yeah, it's a mess.
  - technothrasher 6mo ago
    > Except that if a student wants to learn without using them My son, who is a freshman at a major university in NYC, when he said to his freshman English professor that he wanted to write his papers without using AI, was told that this was "too advanced for a freshman English class" and that using AI was a requirement.
    - senordevnyc 6mo ago
      Now colleges will have to try and detect if you didn't use AI!
whattheheckheck 6mo ago
When industrialization was taking root yes indeed the factory jobs sucked AND it was the future. Two things can be true
- ares623 6mo ago
  You left out the part that the non-factory jobs sucked more (or were just non-existent). This is the opposite.
metalliqaz 6mo ago
By my understanding, the administrators at small colleges are among the least capable professionals one might find anywhere in the economy.
- throwawaysleep 6mo ago
  A friend and I have a contract with a local university here in Canada. They paid for custom on prem software and in over a year, they have not fully provided both access and infrastructure for install it. We have been paid already, but they paid for a tool they can’t get their shit together enough to let us install.
- kjkjadksj 6mo ago
  This is true even at large colleges. Better cut faculty jobs to deal with budget shortfall. Never mind the football program can raise $200m with a dozen phone calls.
Terr_ 6mo ago
I've been telling my curious/adrift relatives that it's a machine takes a document and guesses what "usually" comes next based on other documents. You're not "chatting with it" as much as helping it construct a chat document. The closer they can map their real problems to make-document-bigger, the better their results will be. Alas, that alignment is nearly 100% when it comes to academic cheating.
ares623 6mo ago
Meh, today I opened twenty PRs and felt great. That's worth it to me. (/s) https://twentyprsaday.github.io/ https://twentyprsaday.github.io/
nicbou 6mo ago
My only gripe is how myopic the AI discussion on HN is. We barely talk about how it hits everyone else. In the relocation industry, it's losing translators, relocation consultants and immigration lawyers a lot of work. Their cases are also getting tougher because people are getting false information from ChatGPT and arguing with them. This problem is compounded by the lack of training data for that topic. I spent years surfacing that sort of information and putting it online, but with AI overviews killing the economics of running a website, it feels pointless. I see such stories everywhere. People being replaced by something half as good but a tenth of the cost. It's putting everyone out of work and making everything worse.
- simianwords 6mo ago
  Half as good and tenth of the cost is a good replacement. I constantly make those choices myself when purchasing things.
  - civvv 6mo ago
    That entirely depends on what you are buying. If you’re in need of a lawyer to keep you out of the bottom bunk, I’d happily spend a lot more for a little better.
  - nicbou 6mo ago
    It's fine to an extent, but it kills what happens in the other half. You can feel it with AI-generated content and responses, in AI-generated art, customer service bots and vibe-coded software. This gradual worsening of everything won't lead to lower prices or a better experience, so it's not really a tradeoff.
  - dalmo3 6mo ago
    I think GPs point is that you'll soon not even be able to make those choices. Now every toilet on the market only flushes number one. But hey, they're so much cheaper.

by lukev 6mo ago

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

chatmasta 6mo ago

The wild part is they’re having this reaction while using the most rigid and limited interfaces to the LLMs. Imagine when the capabilities of coding agents surface up to these professions. It’s already starting to happen with Claude Cowork. I swear if I see another presentation with that default theme…

iugtmkbdfil834 6mo ago
This. As annoying as all sorts of 'safety features' are, the sheer amount of effort that goes into further restricting that on the corporate wrapper side side makes llm nigh unusable. How can those kids even begin to get the idea of what it can do, when it seems like its severely locked down.
- pjc50 6mo ago
  Could you provide an example of such a thing that is prevented?
  - iugtmkbdfil834 6mo ago
    Sure. In the instance I am aware of, SQL ( and xml and few others )files are explicitly verbotten, but you can upload them as text and reference them that way; references to personal information like DOB immediately stops the inference with no clear error as to why, but referencing the same info any other way allows it go on. It is all small things, but none of those small things are captured anywhere so whoever is on the other end has to 'discover' through trial and error.

webdood90 6mo ago

> These people are absolutely lost, with administration totally sold on the idea that "AI is the future" ... Doesn't sound that different from my tech job

jakelsaunders94 6mo ago

This is really interesting. I've been out of education for a long time, but I was wondering how they were dealing with the advent of AI. Are exams still a thing? Do people do coursework now that you can spew out competent sounding stuff in seconds?

Al-Khwarizmi 6mo ago
I teach CS at a university in Spain. Most people here are in denial. It is obvious to me that we need to go back to grading based on in-person exams, but in our last university reform (which tried to copy the US/UK in many aspects) there was so much political posturing and indoctrination about exams being evil and coursework having to take the fore that now most people just can't admit the truth before their own eyes. And for those of us that do admit it, we have a limited range of maneuver because grading coursework is often a requirement that emanates from above and we can't fundamentally change it. So in most courses nothing has changed in the way we grade. Suddenly coursework grades have gone up sharply. Anyone with working neurons know why, but in the best case, nothing of consequence is done. In the worst case (fortunately uncommon), there are people trusting snake oil detectors and probably unfairly failing some students. Oh, and I forgot: there are also some people who are increasing the difficulty of the coursework in line with LLMs. Which I guess more or less makes sense... Except that if a student wants to learn without using them, then they suddenly will find assignments to be out of their league. So yeah, it's a mess.
- technothrasher 6mo ago
  > Except that if a student wants to learn without using them My son, who is a freshman at a major university in NYC, when he said to his freshman English professor that he wanted to write his papers without using AI, was told that this was "too advanced for a freshman English class" and that using AI was a requirement.
  - senordevnyc 6mo ago
    Now colleges will have to try and detect if you didn't use AI!

whattheheckheck 6mo ago

When industrialization was taking root yes indeed the factory jobs sucked AND it was the future. Two things can be true

ares623 6mo ago
You left out the part that the non-factory jobs sucked more (or were just non-existent). This is the opposite.

metalliqaz 6mo ago

By my understanding, the administrators at small colleges are among the least capable professionals one might find anywhere in the economy.

throwawaysleep 6mo ago
A friend and I have a contract with a local university here in Canada. They paid for custom on prem software and in over a year, they have not fully provided both access and infrastructure for install it. We have been paid already, but they paid for a tool they can’t get their shit together enough to let us install.
kjkjadksj 6mo ago
This is true even at large colleges. Better cut faculty jobs to deal with budget shortfall. Never mind the football program can raise $200m with a dozen phone calls.

Terr_ 6mo ago

I've been telling my curious/adrift relatives that it's a machine takes a document and guesses what "usually" comes next based on other documents. You're not "chatting with it" as much as helping it construct a chat document. The closer they can map their real problems to make-document-bigger, the better their results will be. Alas, that alignment is nearly 100% when it comes to academic cheating.

ares623 6mo ago

Meh, today I opened twenty PRs and felt great. That's worth it to me. (/s) https://twentyprsaday.github.io/ https://twentyprsaday.github.io/

nicbou 6mo ago

My only gripe is how myopic the AI discussion on HN is. We barely talk about how it hits everyone else. In the relocation industry, it's losing translators, relocation consultants and immigration lawyers a lot of work. Their cases are also getting tougher because people are getting false information from ChatGPT and arguing with them. This problem is compounded by the lack of training data for that topic. I spent years surfacing that sort of information and putting it online, but with AI overviews killing the economics of running a website, it feels pointless. I see such stories everywhere. People being replaced by something half as good but a tenth of the cost. It's putting everyone out of work and making everything worse.

simianwords 6mo ago
Half as good and tenth of the cost is a good replacement. I constantly make those choices myself when purchasing things.
- civvv 6mo ago
  That entirely depends on what you are buying. If you’re in need of a lawyer to keep you out of the bottom bunk, I’d happily spend a lot more for a little better.
- nicbou 6mo ago
  It's fine to an extent, but it kills what happens in the other half. You can feel it with AI-generated content and responses, in AI-generated art, customer service bots and vibe-coded software. This gradual worsening of everything won't lead to lower prices or a better experience, so it's not really a tradeoff.
- dalmo3 6mo ago
  I think GPs point is that you'll soon not even be able to make those choices. Now every toilet on the market only flushes number one. But hey, they're so much cheaper.