Comment on A generation taught not to think: AI in the classroom
Fedegenerate@lemmynsfw.com 5 days agoNah I grew up with the “you won’t always have a calculator in your pocket” crowd.
If AI gets everything wrong then students using it to offload their thinking will get failing grades. AI getting everything wrong is a self solving problem.
TheJesusaurus@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
I didn’t really say AI bad, though I think it is. But it’s objectively different. A calculator is designed so that when you punch in 2+2 it return 4 every single time, because that’s how it functions.
If you ask AI the same question twice you get 2 answers, different AIs give different responses, different prompts, different people, different geography.
It may be able to consistently regurgitate mostly correct answers to fairly uncontroversial common questions. Things we might call “facts”, things that largely have that information available freely in the world anyway.
As soon as we’re talking about subjectivity, writing essays and supporting arguments etc, you’re taking your life in your hands trusting AI with that kind of answer.
But largely this stuff is besides the point.
Fedegenerate@lemmynsfw.com 4 days ago
Implying GenAi gives wrong answers isn’t saying AI bad?
That’s true of people too, and we trust them to do all sorts of things. Ask 20 people what happens after you die, how many answers are you getting? Not just that ask any technical question, ask 4 beekeepers the best way to do a thing and you’ll get 5 answers.
GenAI is a tool, if you try use it to hammer in nails you’re gonna have a bad time. Don’t try use it to hammer in nails.
It turns out wrote answers to wrote questions is something it does fairly well, and it’s still getting better. That’s good, as a society we’ve moved past wrote answers to wrote questions. We should now prepre kids for the society they are going to grow up in, one with GenAI. Critical thinking is something it does fairly poorly, critical thinking is something we do fairly poorly, let’s teach that.
Beyond academics, shitty throwaway art is something it can also do fairly well. Just want an image use GenAi, want a master piece get a human. You already do this, how many of your clothes are handmade? Used a milliner recently? The Luddites taught us a lesson, attacking looms don’t work.
I hope I was the last generation to spend hours on long division with quotes of “you won’t always have access to a calculator”. Those that go into fields where long division may be useful should learn it, the rest of us have calculators.
TheJesusaurus@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
The point of learning long division is so you understand it. Once you understand it, THEN you can use the calculator.
Your entire argument is prefaced on the assumption that genAI is something that is actually useful.
The corollary of your luddite point is that EVERY SINGLE TECHNOLOGY is useful and groundbreaking and should be adopted.
That’s obviously not the case, lots of technologies are dead ends or can be accomplished much more efficiently with existing technology.
If genAI is a tool, can you tell me what exactly it is that it does?
Fedegenerate@lemmynsfw.com 2 days ago
That wasn’t my experience of learning long division. Not a lot of time was spent on understanding the process. A lot of time was spent on repetition, repetition, repetion until it was wrote. The division button on the calculator was faster, easier and gave more accurate results.
No. The corollary of my luddite argument is that tools are tools. Attacking the tools don’t work to solve systemic problems.
See post for one example of students using it as a tool.
See, the “AI bad” people are funny. In a post about how people are actually using GenAI as a tool to achieve their goals “If genAI is a tool, can you tell me what exactly it does”?
It is a shame the airways a late clogged with this nonsense instead of how the wealthy are using tools, any tools, to concentrate wealth.