4 ms·

> 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 t

by 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?
        TonyAlicea10 3mo ago
        I'm not sure how common sense says that LLMs will hallucinate less on topics for children. That's not how they work. And no, LLMs are not perfect. They're non-deterministic. And no, even if they were perfect my statement was that it is irresponsible to teach a child to trust an LLM. Even if it was perfect on these topics, as they move forward in education that trust would later fail them. That is a problem both ideologically and pragmatically. You have to think long-term. On a side note: ask an LLM to write a story at a 4-9 year old level. Work with it for awhile doing iterations and it will hallucinate a previous detail or change a character name as context rots. Lots of other examples of "basic" topics that still produce hallucinations.
- 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.

by Marha01 3mo ago

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?
        TonyAlicea10 3mo ago
        I'm not sure how common sense says that LLMs will hallucinate less on topics for children. That's not how they work. And no, LLMs are not perfect. They're non-deterministic. And no, even if they were perfect my statement was that it is irresponsible to teach a child to trust an LLM. Even if it was perfect on these topics, as they move forward in education that trust would later fail them. That is a problem both ideologically and pragmatically. You have to think long-term. On a side note: ask an LLM to write a story at a 4-9 year old level. Work with it for awhile doing iterations and it will hallucinate a previous detail or change a character name as context rots. Lots of other examples of "basic" topics that still produce hallucinations.
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.