To teach in the time of ChatGPT is to know pain
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
An AI is really the wrong tool for that job: using AI to extract the citation data from a paper might be less effort than doing it yourself, especially if the PDF was badly generated, but pretty m uh every significant citation style has templates defined for the various management tools, which will get it right every time and won’t randomly produce errors that you have to manually check in detial
Upvote
6
(6
/
0)
At my university about 2/3 of the engineering students, except civil engineers, and most of the best students, went into petrochemicals, mining, ad/spyware, or arms industries. That means that aside from a few with strong moral principles or who wanted to do something fun (such as F1), attempts to make students think about social and environmental impacts just lead to more cynicism, not more moral outcomes.
Upvote
1
(2
/
-1)
Yep. Fuck it. Your university put out a crappy product, so what's the point in even trying to improve things.
Upvote
1
(1
/
0)
Or a British- or German- style 3-year degree that’s much more focused, although that’s also because students are expected to have done more in secondary education (e.g. basic calculus, for anyone doing a maths/heavy degree). I believe the Russian system is similarly focused, although IDK anything about French universities except some of the names of prestigious ones.
Upvote
1
(1
/
0)
It is on Macs: option-shift-minus for em-dash, option-minus for en-dash. Before LLMs were everywhere, it was a pretty strong hint that the writer was using a Mac.
Upvote
1
(3
/
-2)
True, but adapted to modern students you might ask “do you want to be the next Einstein, or a centi-millionaire?” I know which I’d like to think I’d pick, but also know which one I’d probably actually choose.
Upvote
0
(0
/
0)
The problem is that we make it a choice. Be smart, like Einstein, or be rich, like Bezos. (Never mind that most of the billionaires had significant help from their parents.)
I would argue that in a well-balanced society, one can be both Einstein and a billionaire. Or at least a multi-millionaire.
Upvote
2
(2
/
0)
It’s not a bad product, it’s an inherent contradiction between the universities’ ideals of social responsibility and the reality of where all the best jobs were. That was back when Google was the place for a CS or SE grad to go if they wanted time a high-flier, for example, and yet after anyone in the field could possibly still believe in “don’t be evil”, and it was similar in other fields too, so the intelligent, ambitious students had already decided to sell their souls to the devil before they’d begun their degrees.
Upvote
0
(0
/
0)
Then let's agree it is a compromised product. The purpose of a degree is different from the purpose of a professional credential, and the choice to water down intentionally broad requirements does not serve the interests of the ideals you describe and on which we also agree (I think) are a Good Thing™ for society.
Upvote
3
(3
/
0)
Unfortunately, though, for American students it doesn't really matter what the European systems offer, they mostly just get what's available here.
But we DO have trade schools and technical programs. If you choose your program right you're likely to better financially than if you go into most non-engineering programs in a 4 year college.
Upvote
2
(2
/
0)
Though this thread is waning, NYT posted a relevant oped today that hits directly on pretty much all the points covered in the story and subsequent discussion. (May be paywalled for some--sorry!)
One key point it makes is that this pushback is not about being anti-tech. It is to be more tech-intentional, and closes with a comment on Emerson, telling us "real education requires a person to learn that there is no algorithm for fulfillment: 'Though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil.' "
One key point it makes is that this pushback is not about being anti-tech. It is to be more tech-intentional, and closes with a comment on Emerson, telling us "real education requires a person to learn that there is no algorithm for fulfillment: 'Though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil.' "
Upvote
3
(3
/
0)
A mug's game is right, given what we teach them is that we'll take advantage of any impulse they have to think or act virtuously by finding a way to extract all the material profit from it and leave them with the empty shell. We pervert ambition to greed, pervert heroism or loyalty to exploit self-sacrifice (e.g. how we treated "essential workers"), pervert even charitable impulses to finance lobbying and reduce the pressure to use public money for good works... Of course a student doesn't see value in cheap awards and recognition while their bellies are empty and authorities harvest the material rewards for themselves.
It works better if we can give them a safe space in which what they do bears its own fruit, and if they realize they may cultivate themselves for their own benefit instead of always transacting with another.
Upvote
0
(0
/
0)
I already had the education; I needed the paper. I worked as a software engineer all thru college; the degree was because in 2000 you were just expected to get one if you wanted a high paying job.
Education is valuable, but funneling everyone into the university system was never the whole answer. Degrees became performative and we sent a lot of kids who should have failed out thru liberal arts degree mills just because you needed the paper to make over $100k. Those days are mercifully over; I hope those kids go to technical school and learn some actual job skills over how to impress boomers with credentials.
If you wanna get really mad, business school was absolutely worth the money — because it was a feeder program into executive leadership programs at major companies. Getting in was the hard part. They stopped even pretending classes mattered after the first semester internship applications were over; going to the bar drinking with your buddies who are going to be the next executive class in corporate America was legitimately a better use of your time.
Upvote
-3
(0
/
-3)
College has been performative for so long that this has been an issue for most of our lives. To the point many of us are blind to it. The truth is, which college you went to matters far more than what you studied. It never stopped mattering.
The meritocracy has always been a lie: you can smooth over bad work with relationship building, but you cannot smooth over bad relationship building with good work. My career is basically proof of that; 25 years in and the fact I goofed off all of undergrad has not once mattered.
Last edited:
Upvote
-2
(1
/
-3)
... and you'll never know differently. Which is fine. If you're satisfied with your life, then you're satisfied with your life.
Upvote
2
(2
/
0)
You can find people who will argue against plate tectonics, too. Widespread acceptance of that theory only goes back to the 1960s.
Also I feel that it's remiss of you to fail to note that the second article was written by Günter Bechly, an "intelligent design" advocate and anti-Darwinist, and was published in "Science and Culture," a journal run by the anti-evolution Discovery Institute.
The big giveaway is the mention of birds and dinosaurs being different "kinds," which is intelligent design language for the groups of animals Noah took on the Ark.
Last edited:
Upvote
4
(4
/
0)
That's true, but only at the very top and the very bottom. Yes, if you went to an Ivy, you'll get preferential treatment from all of that school's alums for the rest of your life. And if you want to a bargain basement diploma mill, your degree isn't worth much.
But for the vast tier of schools in the middle, what your degree is in does matter. How much it matters does depend on the field and the era. For example, in the late 1990s there was a shortage of tech workers, and few degrees really aimed at things like system administration, so it wasn't unusual for workers to have a degree in some other subject. But in established fields, especially licensed ones, it matters.
Upvote
3
(3
/
0)
Trade school is a profitable short-term choice but once you're into your 50s, being a plumber or electrician crawling around under houses sounds a lot less appealing. Those fields suffer more than most from the lack of a reliable way to retire.
Upvote
2
(2
/
0)
whoda thunkit that we are making this AI generation dumber with AI?
Anybody who has to learn what they know, not repeat what someone else does to fake it until you make it.
Anybody who has to learn what they know, not repeat what someone else does to fake it until you make it.
Upvote
0
(0
/
0)
It works fine for law schools. Not everyone is cut out to have a college degree.
Upvote
0
(0
/
0)
One subtle aspect of this, which we are nowhere near being able to evaluate, is whether this is a moment like the introduction of inexpensive portable calculators. When I Was A Boy, I read a novel written in the late 1950s which mentioned a character dropping out of school because she couldn't learn how to extract cube roots. I was in high school in the early 1970s, and every body was expected to be able to do long division, but extracting square roots was just an interesting bit the math teacher showed to the nerdiest students. Not long after that, nobody has ever needed to do long division. They probably still teach it in schools so that the kids have some idea how the process works, but nobody expects anybody to be able to do it when the stakes are significant. E.g. employers expect you to use a calculator.
Now consider the things that the current AIs are good at. Are we just crossing the line to where nobody is ever paid to do that sort of work "manually" any more? I talked to a computer programmer a while back and he says that he spends his entire day supervising Claude Code instances doing the actual work.
Now consider the things that the current AIs are good at. Are we just crossing the line to where nobody is ever paid to do that sort of work "manually" any more? I talked to a computer programmer a while back and he says that he spends his entire day supervising Claude Code instances doing the actual work.
Upvote
-1
(0
/
-1)
Actually we are in a great position to evaluate it right now.
When you bought that calculator, what would you have done if it told you that the cube root of 27 was 4? Or if it said pi was equal to 3?
Because right now, that's what LLMs do, often enough to be a serious problem. It is known as "hallucinating" among the people who work with LLMs and has caused serious errors. In one case, the LLMs hallucination ended up wiping out three months of data along with the backups, making this a very expensive problem.
When LLMs no longer hallucinate, then they might, possibly be useful. Until then, they are worse than useless because they frequently give an answer that looks right but is very, very wrong indeed and perform actions that were neither requested nor desirable.
Upvote
6
(6
/
0)
Yes indeed. The problem is, in our society, a degree is primarily a means to an end. It doesn't matter that I'm fascinated by art or astronomy if those things won't put food on the table. I did not have the luxury to put emphasis on studying those things that interested me so, unfortunately, a degree (which I never did complete) was a means to an end.
But also, while the rigorous schedule does help me to learn a subject that I might otherwise be lackadaisical about, the stresses of the whole pass/fail dynamic coupled with the unyielding schedule which makes no allowances for such things as recharge time, mental health days, random nights where you just can't fall asleep, or just things that come up that demand your time, meant that actually learning was always secondary to manufacturing the proof that I had learned - getting the grade - and doing so quickly enough to move on to the next thing. Add in the economic factor - it costs money to attend school and the longer it takes, the more in debt you are when it's over - and I honestly don't know how anybody can take joy in learning, at least in the academic sense of the word. I took what joy I could where I could but the learning and the grade were always completely separate priorities for me.
Upvote
1
(1
/
0)
And now you understand why the value of a college education for the purpose you define is in question. As an end in itself, it remains worthwhile. Oddly, the people who pursue it for that purpose wind up being typically more valuable, too.
-says a guy who hired and promoted literally hundreds of people with all manner of degrees AND lack thereof over the years.
Upvote
0
(1
/
-1)
You're still teaching your grandmother to suck eggs? I guarantee you, the person you're replying to already understood the situation long before you came along, same as I did.
Upvote
-2
(0
/
-2)
Either you understand the difference being having an education and having a degree, or you don't.
Upvote
-2
(0
/
-2)
I mean I like what you're saying. The problem is life still happens. Rent needs to be paid and so on. And tuition isn't exactly cheap. In an ideal world, it would be lovely to pursue education for its own sake but that was never in the cards for me. Also the structure of what we call education itself is burdensome. I've already talked about the rigorous and unrelenting schedule. Basically, for me not to cheat, the consequences of doing poorly would need to be non-existent. I would need to have no reason to worry about lost time, lost tuition, or the results of a bad gpa and so on. I would need to not have to worry about how to juggle time spent on schoolwork and time spent on supporting myself, not worry about how a random bout of insomnia at the wrong time could result in a bad grade with lasting consequences.
Upvote
-1
(0
/
-1)
The consequences are not having what a degree from a reputable institution should imply one has.
I understand the reality that most jobs that “require” a degree don’t really need one. I also see that the bulk of those who choose to fake it flounder next to those who put more into preparing themselves, and wind up resentful they aren’t where they want to be in the long run and blame “the system” for the gap.
Upvote
-1
(0
/
-1)