6 ms·

I was born in 1970. My teenage years were in the 1980s, in coincidence with the emergence of the home computer. I had a Timex-Sinclair 1000, then a C64, then a

I was born in 1970. My teenage years were in the 1980s, in coincidence with the emergence of the home computer. I had a Timex-Sinclair 1000, then a C64, then a C128. One of my main forces that drove myself to learn computers was (besides games) the ability to produce text that was clearly written and readable, thanks to word processors and printers, because my handwriting was abysmal, and I got tired very quickly while writing by hand. In the computer, instead, I got to type exactly what I wanted, I could edit and correct my spelling and grammar mistakes, and then produce very readable and clean output. A win in my book. Now, I require of students to submit written assignments done by hand. That way, I can at least be certain that there's some learning involved, even if they resort to AI to produce the relevant written part, because evidence points out that writing by hand reinforces learning. I read that other professors resorted to requiring manual typewriters, which I also hate with a passion. That is, AI is negating decades of enablement achieved by technology. Honestly, between these circumstances and the fact that we are "enjoying" (?) brave new prices for RAM and SSDs, I'm finding AI increasingly harder to like.

ButlerianJihad 3mo ago
I was in high school from 1986-1989, and my experience began with TI-99/4A in grade school, a VIC-20 at home, and then a C=64 (high school offered a Commodore-based lab as well.) Dad indulged me with many peripherals, including an Epson dot-matrix tractor-feed printer that printed 132cps! Among its features were configurable fonts and point-size. I discovered that this device could be set up for extremely small fonts that remained legible. So, for Spanish and other classes, I decided to go into the "cheat sheet" production business. I worked out how to print a sheet full of little 2x2" sheets that contained Spanish vocab, or the study answers for our next quiz or whatever, and I used them myself, and then I began to sell them!! And the most ironic thing happened, when I discovered that I never needed the cheat sheets: having created them by typing them in, repeatedly, correcting errors and checking against our textbooks, I had internalized, memorized and learned all the answers as any ethical student would! I got caught, once or twice, and disciplined for distributing those cheat sheets, and I definitely did not continue cheating in classes, because I'm not that kind of guy, but the process was a revelation to me, and ever since the 1980s I have relied on hand-written notes to reinforce my memory of those words and facts that flow from ears, to mind, to hand muscles, to pen, and onto ye olde fashioned paper. Now can we see a reason that "writing 100 times on the chalkboard" may have been an edifying exercise, beyond its punishment value?
sdevonoes 3mo ago
> I'm finding AI increasingly harder to like. That summarises pretty well the whole situation. AI is cool and all, but not worth it considering all the disadvantages
- red-iron-pine 3mo ago
  but we can put data centers in space bro
  - Cthulhu_ 3mo ago
    The only problem that solves is SpaceX's cash flow / maintaining its demand for launches, and said demand is needed to justify developing mass production technology / processes for rockets.
    - entropicdrifter 3mo ago
      pretty sure they were being sarcastic
lgcmo 3mo ago
I was a teacher assistant circa 2023. I required every student to submit the assignments typed digitally, since grading a single handwritten one would take as much time as 5 typed. I saw a single fully AI generated assignment and it was laughable and an easy zero. I wonder how I would do it now.
- lmc 3mo ago
  Ah yes, the good old days.
- hyperbovine 3mo ago
  That one early adopter student could conceivably have gone on to be the most successful of the lot.
peterbell_nyc 3mo ago
The problem isn't the AI - it's the assessments. It used to be that shipping a large, well-researched essay with multiple citations was proof of work. Now it's proof of prompting, not learning or effort. If you want to test for memorization, you need a live test to do so. If you want to test for comprehension and understanding, require sessions with a tutoring AI and grade the level of comprehension exhibited. And then please, please test for prompting with challenging assignments that would usually be beyond a student's skills and make sure they know how to drive the machines to do valued work. I totally agree that there is utility in memorization and comprehension. I also know that by the time students graduate, AI will be the job and if they can't pair successfully with agentic workflows they will not be much use in the work force for many roles.
- azangru 3mo ago
  > And then please, please test for prompting with challenging assignments that would usually be beyond a student's skills Does this mean you will requre all students to pay for a subscription to an llm provider?
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  - anthonypasq 3mo ago
    does this mean that every student will need to pay a computer manufacturer to finish university?
    - jason_oster 3mo ago
      Or pay publishers for textbooks?
  - telchior 3mo ago
    Yes, but it must be the university approved version that costs 20x the consumer / business version. Sounds like sarcasm, but the wheels appear to already be in motion on this.
parpfish 3mo ago
of you could require presentations with a Q&A section at the end. they can use the AI all the want to help their workflow to develop teh content, but the better engage with the material enough that they can field some questions at the end. the main downsides are: - takes a long time to administer - the Q&A section leads to unstandardized grading, but i think that's fine. just away from scores on precise 0-100 scale and just score in a couple coarse buckets (superb, acceptable, fail, etc)

ButlerianJihad 3mo ago

I was in high school from 1986-1989, and my experience began with TI-99/4A in grade school, a VIC-20 at home, and then a C=64 (high school offered a Commodore-based lab as well.) Dad indulged me with many peripherals, including an Epson dot-matrix tractor-feed printer that printed 132cps! Among its features were configurable fonts and point-size. I discovered that this device could be set up for extremely small fonts that remained legible. So, for Spanish and other classes, I decided to go into the "cheat sheet" production business. I worked out how to print a sheet full of little 2x2" sheets that contained Spanish vocab, or the study answers for our next quiz or whatever, and I used them myself, and then I began to sell them!! And the most ironic thing happened, when I discovered that I never needed the cheat sheets: having created them by typing them in, repeatedly, correcting errors and checking against our textbooks, I had internalized, memorized and learned all the answers as any ethical student would! I got caught, once or twice, and disciplined for distributing those cheat sheets, and I definitely did not continue cheating in classes, because I'm not that kind of guy, but the process was a revelation to me, and ever since the 1980s I have relied on hand-written notes to reinforce my memory of those words and facts that flow from ears, to mind, to hand muscles, to pen, and onto ye olde fashioned paper. Now can we see a reason that "writing 100 times on the chalkboard" may have been an edifying exercise, beyond its punishment value?

sdevonoes 3mo ago

> I'm finding AI increasingly harder to like. That summarises pretty well the whole situation. AI is cool and all, but not worth it considering all the disadvantages

red-iron-pine 3mo ago
but we can put data centers in space bro
- Cthulhu_ 3mo ago
  The only problem that solves is SpaceX's cash flow / maintaining its demand for launches, and said demand is needed to justify developing mass production technology / processes for rockets.
  - entropicdrifter 3mo ago
    pretty sure they were being sarcastic

lgcmo 3mo ago

I was a teacher assistant circa 2023. I required every student to submit the assignments typed digitally, since grading a single handwritten one would take as much time as 5 typed. I saw a single fully AI generated assignment and it was laughable and an easy zero. I wonder how I would do it now.

lmc 3mo ago
Ah yes, the good old days.
hyperbovine 3mo ago
That one early adopter student could conceivably have gone on to be the most successful of the lot.

peterbell_nyc 3mo ago

The problem isn't the AI - it's the assessments. It used to be that shipping a large, well-researched essay with multiple citations was proof of work. Now it's proof of prompting, not learning or effort. If you want to test for memorization, you need a live test to do so. If you want to test for comprehension and understanding, require sessions with a tutoring AI and grade the level of comprehension exhibited. And then please, please test for prompting with challenging assignments that would usually be beyond a student's skills and make sure they know how to drive the machines to do valued work. I totally agree that there is utility in memorization and comprehension. I also know that by the time students graduate, AI will be the job and if they can't pair successfully with agentic workflows they will not be much use in the work force for many roles.

azangru 3mo ago
> And then please, please test for prompting with challenging assignments that would usually be beyond a student's skills Does this mean you will requre all students to pay for a subscription to an llm provider?
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- anthonypasq 3mo ago
  does this mean that every student will need to pay a computer manufacturer to finish university?
  - jason_oster 3mo ago
    Or pay publishers for textbooks?
- telchior 3mo ago
  Yes, but it must be the university approved version that costs 20x the consumer / business version. Sounds like sarcasm, but the wheels appear to already be in motion on this.

parpfish 3mo ago

of you could require presentations with a Q&A section at the end. they can use the AI all the want to help their workflow to develop teh content, but the better engage with the material enough that they can field some questions at the end. the main downsides are: - takes a long time to administer - the Q&A section leads to unstandardized grading, but i think that's fine. just away from scores on precise 0-100 scale and just score in a couple coarse buckets (superb, acceptable, fail, etc)