8 ms·

And for the good reason. I have yet to see 1 (one) reason how giving infinite cheat machine to students is of any benefit to them. The secret to mastery remain

by d_silin 1mo ago

And for the good reason. I have yet to see 1 (one) reason how giving infinite cheat machine to students is of any benefit to them. The secret to mastery remained unchanged for a thousand years: books, lectures and homework. All of this can be done with pen and paper level of technology.

_aavaa_ 1mo ago
A home can also be built of mud bricks and heated by dung. The issue you’re describing is a mindset/cultural one, not a technological one. The same cheating machine can be used as a tutor. Those same cheating students understand, that at the gym, they themselves have to lift the weights to get strong, but that mindset doesn’t carry over to their classes.
- d_silin 1mo ago
  LLMs are like anabolic steroids for the brain. Surely you can do more with them, but you are better without them. Access to them should be restricted, especially for untrained minds.
  - _aavaa_ 1mo ago
    That’s a bad analogy, you still have to put all the effort yourself at the gym while on steroids. Perhaps LLMs are a forklift.
    - d_silin 1mo ago
      Ha! Steroids give you muscle mass without lifting, believe it or not. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199607043350101 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199607043350101 Of course, side effects are a different story.
      - NopIdoN 1mo ago
        but I can deal with the side effects using my free strength!
    - thegreenswede 1mo ago
      Not true actually
  - deleted 1mo ago
    [deleted]
- GPerson 1mo ago
  This is the most profound comment I’ve ever read on this website. How do we do push the culture in a direction such that productive intellectual pursuits will actually be intrinsically desirable in the AI era?
  - _aavaa_ 1mo ago
    > "It's easier to get and raise a child > Than to put character in him. No one > Has ever found a way to make a fool > Wise or a bad man good. If god had taught > This to the children of Asclepius— > How to cure badness or a muddled brain— > What handsome fees they'd earn!" That was Theogenis from the 6th century BC. I don’t think we’re any closer today than they were back then.
    - NateEag 1mo ago
      I'm an agnostic, but the closest thing I've seen to consistent success in producing wise, selfless people are mystical spiritual experiences. Even they are not very reliable. The drug-induced ones don't seem to work as well, in my study of anecdotes on the topic, so it may well be that trying to scale up mystical experience would defeat the purpose of so doing.
- bunderbunder 1mo ago
  To go with the gym analogy, thus far it would seem that using AI to help study seems to be working out about as well as the Enhanced Games did. Before we get ahead of ourselves and hype up AI as a tool for making people smarter, let’s first demonstrate that AI really does help them learn better. Otherwise we risk wasting a lot of time and money on silicon snake oil.
  - _aavaa_ 1mo ago
    I don’t think the comparison is fair, consider the incentives for the Enhanced Games. Once an athletic declared their taking banned substances, they are barred from every other competition, so it’s no surprise that “clean” athletes dominate. As for proof, I think it’s self evident for anyone who has tried to us it in that way. If you’re studying math ask it to generate more questions for you to try. If you don’t understand a concept, have it use the Socratic method on you. Learning a language, talk back and forth with it over voice. Writing an essay, have it mark and proofread it and provide feedback based on known good criteria.
    - bunderbunder 1mo ago
      The thing that really made the Enganced Games à debacle isn’t that the participants failed to beat top clean athletes. It’s that they failed to beat their own performance from when they were still clean. Meaning that they didn’t just fail to demonstrate that these supplements could lead to superhuman performance. They didn’t even just fail to demonstrate that they enhance performance. They failed to demonstrate that their overall effect isn’t deleterious. And yet everyone involved believed quite firmly, based in part on personal experience, that it was self-evident that these supplements would make them better athletes. A lot of the arguments for AI in education aren’t far off from the reasoning behind the kinds of popular supplements they used in the Enhanced Games. The limits of that style of thinking are demonstrated quite nicely in the 2010 Canadian Medical Association Journal article “Cigarette smoking: an underused tool in high-performance endurance training”: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3001541/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3001541/
- pjc50 1mo ago
  As all the cheating comments are referencing, the students don't necessarily want to get strong (that is a lot of work), but to get the qualification which unlocks the good jobs. We haven't yet got to the downstream question of what white collar jobs are going to look like in the AI era.
sysguest 1mo ago
> with pen and paper level of technology definitely try out: galaxy s9 ultra tab (wacom! edit: also, 14.6 inch: bigger than any ipad series) + LAMY s-pen + paper-feel screen protector (and optionally felt-tip nibs) miles better than MPP or AES or other crap: those can't draw diagonal lines without wobbling, thought I was getting parkinsons
- d_silin 1mo ago
  I had iPads and Apple Pencils - but nothing beats the pleasure of ink pen on paper.
paytonjjones 1mo ago
Alpha School is a decent counterpoint to this. Of course, it's a highly selected group of students. I very much doubt it's scalable in the way one would hope.
summarybot 1mo ago
The definition of mastery in your comment sounds like nonreliance on technology to accomplish [something]. Technologyless Mastery was a natural result from: reliance and overreliance on technology being stuttery, unpredictable, inadventitious and costly. In other words, it made more sense to 'frontload' hardthought and pondering so one was prepared [for whatever may come]. People also thought aqueducts were the best way to move water for thousands of years.
- d_silin 1mo ago
  I can teach symbolic math effectively using clay tablet and reed pen today. Numerical methods, however, would require at least minimal computing hardware. I think there should be a guiding principle of using the least amount of tech in teaching any subject, just like principle of least privilege in cybersecurity.
  - nocoolnametom 1mo ago
    You hit on the head something that I've been trying to put into words for a while now: it seems that the benefit of technology to increase learning appears to be a bell-shaped graph where for each combination of subject matter there is a sweet spot where the level of technological assistance becomes helpful but after which it replaces too much of your own internal neuron-connecting processes and inhibits learning.
    - summarybot 1mo ago
      That's a strong observation. And I'm wondering if humans will adapt; or if the intensity of "heat and light" required to "weld" connections together is non-negotiable.
- goda90 1mo ago
  > People also thought aqueducts were the best way to move water for thousands of years. They still do because they still are? I'm hard pressed to think of a better way to move water than creating a gently sloped channel(this includes any pipelines that don't use pumps, by the way) for it to follow from where it is to where you need it. Many places that don't have sufficient local groundwater are still supplied by aqueducts to this day. If you have to pump it, then you're paying for the channel and the energy, which is worse than just using gravity.
zurfer 1mo ago
Zooming out you see that books, pen and paper are all technology. Like even school and language is technology. Given that AI exist maybe we can roll back some of the school/university and just let people do the work and learn while doing? Yes not for a 7yo but with 18 you could just work and learn what is required or what you find exciting.
- d_silin 1mo ago
  Self-directed studying doesn't scale. To produce thousands of new graduates per year you need industrial-scale methods - schools and colleges.
  - Ekaros 1mo ago
    It does scale even better than anything else. Majority of students are just not very good at it. And proving that they have learned sufficiently is hard. Thus schools and universities.
    - d_silin 1mo ago
      I sense a certain contradiction? If majority of students are just not very good at self-studying methods, then they don't scale well. Mediocre student that sits through lectures, does the homework and submits assignment on due dates will get a good level of mastery in the subject. The very same student would be totally lost relying only on self-studying - he would not even know what he doesn't know.
      - Ekaros 1mo ago
        It is in sense contradiction. Schools and universities are greatly limited by facilities and teachers. Self studying is not. Thus with modern technology or even with just mass printin you could theoretically educate as many students as you want. In that sense I do say it scales much better. I fully admit that for efficient time spend and production of sufficiently educated students it is not effective method.
  - 1mo ago
1vuio0pswjnm7 1mo ago
"All of this can be done with pen and paper level technology." If pens and paper are technology then why aren't pen and paper manufacturing companies referred to as "tech" companies NB. I am not asking what is a "tech" company or how they are different from other companies. I'm asking why call it a "tech" company given that technology is a broad term used to describe far more than computers

by d_silin 1mo ago

_aavaa_ 1mo ago

A home can also be built of mud bricks and heated by dung. The issue you’re describing is a mindset/cultural one, not a technological one. The same cheating machine can be used as a tutor. Those same cheating students understand, that at the gym, they themselves have to lift the weights to get strong, but that mindset doesn’t carry over to their classes.

d_silin 1mo ago
LLMs are like anabolic steroids for the brain. Surely you can do more with them, but you are better without them. Access to them should be restricted, especially for untrained minds.
- _aavaa_ 1mo ago
  That’s a bad analogy, you still have to put all the effort yourself at the gym while on steroids. Perhaps LLMs are a forklift.
  - d_silin 1mo ago
    Ha! Steroids give you muscle mass without lifting, believe it or not. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199607043350101 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199607043350101 Of course, side effects are a different story.
    - NopIdoN 1mo ago
      but I can deal with the side effects using my free strength!
  - thegreenswede 1mo ago
    Not true actually
- deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]
GPerson 1mo ago
This is the most profound comment I’ve ever read on this website. How do we do push the culture in a direction such that productive intellectual pursuits will actually be intrinsically desirable in the AI era?
- _aavaa_ 1mo ago
  > "It's easier to get and raise a child > Than to put character in him. No one > Has ever found a way to make a fool > Wise or a bad man good. If god had taught > This to the children of Asclepius— > How to cure badness or a muddled brain— > What handsome fees they'd earn!" That was Theogenis from the 6th century BC. I don’t think we’re any closer today than they were back then.
  - NateEag 1mo ago
    I'm an agnostic, but the closest thing I've seen to consistent success in producing wise, selfless people are mystical spiritual experiences. Even they are not very reliable. The drug-induced ones don't seem to work as well, in my study of anecdotes on the topic, so it may well be that trying to scale up mystical experience would defeat the purpose of so doing.
bunderbunder 1mo ago
To go with the gym analogy, thus far it would seem that using AI to help study seems to be working out about as well as the Enhanced Games did. Before we get ahead of ourselves and hype up AI as a tool for making people smarter, let’s first demonstrate that AI really does help them learn better. Otherwise we risk wasting a lot of time and money on silicon snake oil.
- _aavaa_ 1mo ago
  I don’t think the comparison is fair, consider the incentives for the Enhanced Games. Once an athletic declared their taking banned substances, they are barred from every other competition, so it’s no surprise that “clean” athletes dominate. As for proof, I think it’s self evident for anyone who has tried to us it in that way. If you’re studying math ask it to generate more questions for you to try. If you don’t understand a concept, have it use the Socratic method on you. Learning a language, talk back and forth with it over voice. Writing an essay, have it mark and proofread it and provide feedback based on known good criteria.
  - bunderbunder 1mo ago
    The thing that really made the Enganced Games à debacle isn’t that the participants failed to beat top clean athletes. It’s that they failed to beat their own performance from when they were still clean. Meaning that they didn’t just fail to demonstrate that these supplements could lead to superhuman performance. They didn’t even just fail to demonstrate that they enhance performance. They failed to demonstrate that their overall effect isn’t deleterious. And yet everyone involved believed quite firmly, based in part on personal experience, that it was self-evident that these supplements would make them better athletes. A lot of the arguments for AI in education aren’t far off from the reasoning behind the kinds of popular supplements they used in the Enhanced Games. The limits of that style of thinking are demonstrated quite nicely in the 2010 Canadian Medical Association Journal article “Cigarette smoking: an underused tool in high-performance endurance training”: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3001541/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3001541/
pjc50 1mo ago
As all the cheating comments are referencing, the students don't necessarily want to get strong (that is a lot of work), but to get the qualification which unlocks the good jobs. We haven't yet got to the downstream question of what white collar jobs are going to look like in the AI era.

sysguest 1mo ago

> with pen and paper level of technology definitely try out: galaxy s9 ultra tab (wacom! edit: also, 14.6 inch: bigger than any ipad series) + LAMY s-pen + paper-feel screen protector (and optionally felt-tip nibs) miles better than MPP or AES or other crap: those can't draw diagonal lines without wobbling, thought I was getting parkinsons

d_silin 1mo ago
I had iPads and Apple Pencils - but nothing beats the pleasure of ink pen on paper.

paytonjjones 1mo ago

Alpha School is a decent counterpoint to this. Of course, it's a highly selected group of students. I very much doubt it's scalable in the way one would hope.

summarybot 1mo ago

The definition of mastery in your comment sounds like nonreliance on technology to accomplish [something]. Technologyless Mastery was a natural result from: reliance and overreliance on technology being stuttery, unpredictable, inadventitious and costly. In other words, it made more sense to 'frontload' hardthought and pondering so one was prepared [for whatever may come]. People also thought aqueducts were the best way to move water for thousands of years.

d_silin 1mo ago
I can teach symbolic math effectively using clay tablet and reed pen today. Numerical methods, however, would require at least minimal computing hardware. I think there should be a guiding principle of using the least amount of tech in teaching any subject, just like principle of least privilege in cybersecurity.
- nocoolnametom 1mo ago
  You hit on the head something that I've been trying to put into words for a while now: it seems that the benefit of technology to increase learning appears to be a bell-shaped graph where for each combination of subject matter there is a sweet spot where the level of technological assistance becomes helpful but after which it replaces too much of your own internal neuron-connecting processes and inhibits learning.
  - summarybot 1mo ago
    That's a strong observation. And I'm wondering if humans will adapt; or if the intensity of "heat and light" required to "weld" connections together is non-negotiable.
goda90 1mo ago
> People also thought aqueducts were the best way to move water for thousands of years. They still do because they still are? I'm hard pressed to think of a better way to move water than creating a gently sloped channel(this includes any pipelines that don't use pumps, by the way) for it to follow from where it is to where you need it. Many places that don't have sufficient local groundwater are still supplied by aqueducts to this day. If you have to pump it, then you're paying for the channel and the energy, which is worse than just using gravity.

zurfer 1mo ago

Zooming out you see that books, pen and paper are all technology. Like even school and language is technology. Given that AI exist maybe we can roll back some of the school/university and just let people do the work and learn while doing? Yes not for a 7yo but with 18 you could just work and learn what is required or what you find exciting.

d_silin 1mo ago
Self-directed studying doesn't scale. To produce thousands of new graduates per year you need industrial-scale methods - schools and colleges.
- Ekaros 1mo ago
  It does scale even better than anything else. Majority of students are just not very good at it. And proving that they have learned sufficiently is hard. Thus schools and universities.
  - d_silin 1mo ago
    I sense a certain contradiction? If majority of students are just not very good at self-studying methods, then they don't scale well. Mediocre student that sits through lectures, does the homework and submits assignment on due dates will get a good level of mastery in the subject. The very same student would be totally lost relying only on self-studying - he would not even know what he doesn't know.
    - Ekaros 1mo ago
      It is in sense contradiction. Schools and universities are greatly limited by facilities and teachers. Self studying is not. Thus with modern technology or even with just mass printin you could theoretically educate as many students as you want. In that sense I do say it scales much better. I fully admit that for efficient time spend and production of sufficiently educated students it is not effective method.
- 1mo ago

1vuio0pswjnm7 1mo ago

"All of this can be done with pen and paper level technology." If pens and paper are technology then why aren't pen and paper manufacturing companies referred to as "tech" companies NB. I am not asking what is a "tech" company or how they are different from other companies. I'm asking why call it a "tech" company given that technology is a broad term used to describe far more than computers