3 ms·

> They're not going to struggle at all with things a 4-9 year old is learning. Ask them how many r's are in strawberry. > Also it's not like teachers never ma

> They're not going to struggle at all with things a 4-9 year old is learning. Ask them how many r's are in strawberry. > Also it's not like teachers never make confident mistakes. That's an extraordinary false equivalency that is popular around here. Teachers don't make confident mistakes because the student asked the wrong way. Teachers can be held accountable. Teachers can learn. Teachers can love their students.

Marha01 3mo ago
> Ask them how many r's are in strawberry. 2024 called and wants its talking points back. > Teachers don't make confident mistakes because the student asked the wrong way. Teachers can be held accountable. Teachers can learn. Teachers can love their students. All of these can be true, and at the same it can be true that a child tutored by a good quality state-of-the-art LLM with a good teaching-focused harness could have better learning outcomes than a child without it. Even if we agreed that a good human teacher is better than a LLM, human teacher's time and attention is limited.
- TonyAlicea10 3mo ago
  > 2024 called and wants its talking points back. It's a classic example of the kinds of questions LLMs get wrong. There's plenty of others. Not sure your point here. We can easily find things a 4-9 year old will talk about that an LLM will get wrong, hallucinate, etc. > a child tutored by a good quality state-of-the-art LLM with a good teaching-focused harness could have better learning outcomes than a child without it. There's a lot of work being done in 'could'. And it's entirely ignoring the dangers. I'm not saying "no LLMs in education". I'm a technical educator and I give students LLM prompts and agent skills that I've built to help them learn. This isn't that. We're talking about giving an LLM to a 4-9 year old and saying "this is your teacher".
  - blitzar 3mo ago
    > lot of work being done in 'could' if my aunt had wheels, she'd be a bicycle.
  - cindyllm 3mo ago
    [dead]
  - Marha01 3mo ago
    > It's a classic example of the kinds of questions LLMs get wrong. There's plenty of others. Not sure your point here. We can easily find things a 4-9 year old will talk about that an LLM will get wrong, hallucinate, etc. My point is that the hallucination rate of modern LLMs, while not zero, is so low that this is no longer an issue in practice. > There's a lot of work being done in 'could'. And it's entirely ignoring the dangers. I agree that there are some risks. But for many children, the alternative is not human teacher, but no teacher at all. This considerably changes the risk-benefit calculus, IMHO.
    - TonyAlicea10 3mo ago
      > My point is that the hallucination rate of modern LLMs, while not zero, is so low that this is no longer an issue in practice. That's just not true. Talk to an LLM about a subject you know deeply. They make up things all the time.
      - senordevnyc 3mo ago
        With stuff that a 4-9 year old is going to be learning? Color me skeptical.
        TonyAlicea10 3mo ago
        You’re applying human cognition expectations to an LLM. Just because the topic is simple to a human doesn’t mean it improves the likelihood the LLM will behave better. It’s all inference to the machine.
        senordevnyc 3mo ago
        I’m applying my experience with these models, as well as common sense. What are you applying? Would you even admit LLMs are useful for this if they’re perfect at topics that kids would be learning? Or are your objections actually ideological rather than pragmatic?
        3mo ago
  - gverrilla 3mo ago
    > It's a classic example of the kinds of questions LLMs get wrong. There's plenty of others. Not sure your point here. We can easily find things a 4-9 year old will talk about that an LLM will get wrong, hallucinate, etc. I'm not participating in the debate, but fyi I have just asked haiku, sonnet, opus and fable that question and they all got it right. Tried with the letter s in portuguese word "sussuarana" (mountain lion) too - same thing.
- lifeformed 3mo ago
  This assumes that children's learning is solely about correctness and obtaining information. There is a whole universe of other considerations, like interacting with other people, with adults, with fallible authority figures. Having a conversation with a teacher and getting the wrong answer teaches you far more about being a human being and living in a human society, than getting facts back from a screen. Yes, teachers being incorrect is something that should be improved, but reducing human interaction is not an improvement.
IshKebab 3mo ago
> There are 3 letter *"r"*s in "strawberry." > > Spelled out: s t r a w b e r r y → the r's are the 3rd, 8th, and 9th letters. > Teachers don't make confident mistakes because the student asked the wrong way. I don't see why the mechanism of being wrong matters. If anything it's worse when teachers are reliably wrong independently of how you ask the question. > Teachers can be held accountable. lol no. Have you ever tried correcting a teacher? > Teachers can learn. Good teachers can learn. The ones that make confident mistakes don't. Anyway no learning is needed for 4-9 year old education. > Teachers can love their students. That's just such a weird point to make. It is great that my kids' primary school teachers are super kind and loving. But it's not what they're for, and it's definitely not what AI tutors are for. Nobody is claiming this will replace a hug from a parent.
- TonyAlicea10 3mo ago
  > That's just such a weird point to make. No, it's not. The claim that "teacher's make mistakes too" suggests that AI is equivalent to a human teacher in value. I posit other ways in which a human teacher is potentially more valuable. Also, teachers who love their students tend to want to educate them well. > lol no. Have you ever tried correcting a teacher? Do you mean as a student? If so, that's a different dynamic. Because teachers certainly have accountability processes in many institutions.
- TonyAlicea10 3mo ago
  > Anyway no learning is needed for 4-9 year old education. This is an extraordinarily naive statement. Learning how to teach well takes a lifelong commitment. A topic being basic for an adult does not mean it is easier to teach to a child. In many ways it makes it harder.
  - BatFastard 3mo ago
    Indeed there are different kinds of learning, which the poster is not aware of. No booking learning is needed for 4-9 year old's. But learning patience, understanding, empathy are life long pursuits.
- 3mo ago

Marha01 3mo ago

> Ask them how many r's are in strawberry. 2024 called and wants its talking points back. > Teachers don't make confident mistakes because the student asked the wrong way. Teachers can be held accountable. Teachers can learn. Teachers can love their students. All of these can be true, and at the same it can be true that a child tutored by a good quality state-of-the-art LLM with a good teaching-focused harness could have better learning outcomes than a child without it. Even if we agreed that a good human teacher is better than a LLM, human teacher's time and attention is limited.

TonyAlicea10 3mo ago
> 2024 called and wants its talking points back. It's a classic example of the kinds of questions LLMs get wrong. There's plenty of others. Not sure your point here. We can easily find things a 4-9 year old will talk about that an LLM will get wrong, hallucinate, etc. > a child tutored by a good quality state-of-the-art LLM with a good teaching-focused harness could have better learning outcomes than a child without it. There's a lot of work being done in 'could'. And it's entirely ignoring the dangers. I'm not saying "no LLMs in education". I'm a technical educator and I give students LLM prompts and agent skills that I've built to help them learn. This isn't that. We're talking about giving an LLM to a 4-9 year old and saying "this is your teacher".
- blitzar 3mo ago
  > lot of work being done in 'could' if my aunt had wheels, she'd be a bicycle.
- cindyllm 3mo ago
  [dead]
- Marha01 3mo ago
  > It's a classic example of the kinds of questions LLMs get wrong. There's plenty of others. Not sure your point here. We can easily find things a 4-9 year old will talk about that an LLM will get wrong, hallucinate, etc. My point is that the hallucination rate of modern LLMs, while not zero, is so low that this is no longer an issue in practice. > There's a lot of work being done in 'could'. And it's entirely ignoring the dangers. I agree that there are some risks. But for many children, the alternative is not human teacher, but no teacher at all. This considerably changes the risk-benefit calculus, IMHO.
  - TonyAlicea10 3mo ago
    > My point is that the hallucination rate of modern LLMs, while not zero, is so low that this is no longer an issue in practice. That's just not true. Talk to an LLM about a subject you know deeply. They make up things all the time.
    - senordevnyc 3mo ago
      With stuff that a 4-9 year old is going to be learning? Color me skeptical.
      - TonyAlicea10 3mo ago
        You’re applying human cognition expectations to an LLM. Just because the topic is simple to a human doesn’t mean it improves the likelihood the LLM will behave better. It’s all inference to the machine.
        senordevnyc 3mo ago
        I’m applying my experience with these models, as well as common sense. What are you applying? Would you even admit LLMs are useful for this if they’re perfect at topics that kids would be learning? Or are your objections actually ideological rather than pragmatic?
        3mo ago
- gverrilla 3mo ago
  > It's a classic example of the kinds of questions LLMs get wrong. There's plenty of others. Not sure your point here. We can easily find things a 4-9 year old will talk about that an LLM will get wrong, hallucinate, etc. I'm not participating in the debate, but fyi I have just asked haiku, sonnet, opus and fable that question and they all got it right. Tried with the letter s in portuguese word "sussuarana" (mountain lion) too - same thing.
lifeformed 3mo ago
This assumes that children's learning is solely about correctness and obtaining information. There is a whole universe of other considerations, like interacting with other people, with adults, with fallible authority figures. Having a conversation with a teacher and getting the wrong answer teaches you far more about being a human being and living in a human society, than getting facts back from a screen. Yes, teachers being incorrect is something that should be improved, but reducing human interaction is not an improvement.

IshKebab 3mo ago

> There are 3 letter *"r"*s in "strawberry." > > Spelled out: s t r a w b e r r y → the r's are the 3rd, 8th, and 9th letters. > Teachers don't make confident mistakes because the student asked the wrong way. I don't see why the mechanism of being wrong matters. If anything it's worse when teachers are reliably wrong independently of how you ask the question. > Teachers can be held accountable. lol no. Have you ever tried correcting a teacher? > Teachers can learn. Good teachers can learn. The ones that make confident mistakes don't. Anyway no learning is needed for 4-9 year old education. > Teachers can love their students. That's just such a weird point to make. It is great that my kids' primary school teachers are super kind and loving. But it's not what they're for, and it's definitely not what AI tutors are for. Nobody is claiming this will replace a hug from a parent.

TonyAlicea10 3mo ago
> That's just such a weird point to make. No, it's not. The claim that "teacher's make mistakes too" suggests that AI is equivalent to a human teacher in value. I posit other ways in which a human teacher is potentially more valuable. Also, teachers who love their students tend to want to educate them well. > lol no. Have you ever tried correcting a teacher? Do you mean as a student? If so, that's a different dynamic. Because teachers certainly have accountability processes in many institutions.
TonyAlicea10 3mo ago
> Anyway no learning is needed for 4-9 year old education. This is an extraordinarily naive statement. Learning how to teach well takes a lifelong commitment. A topic being basic for an adult does not mean it is easier to teach to a child. In many ways it makes it harder.
- BatFastard 3mo ago
  Indeed there are different kinds of learning, which the poster is not aware of. No booking learning is needed for 4-9 year old's. But learning patience, understanding, empathy are life long pursuits.
3mo ago