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yeah AI companies are pretty vehemently set on making kids dumb & dependent on their products for life. a school district doesn't have the power or bankroll to

yeah AI companies are pretty vehemently set on making kids dumb & dependent on their products for life. a school district doesn't have the power or bankroll to oppose them. what arrogance lol

jesse_dot_id 11d ago
Imagine saying this about a graphing calculator, because that is essentially what the LLM is for knowledge work. You can either be dumb and spell 8008135 or you can get an education and make it sing. They definitely want us dependent on their products for life, because that's what capitalism is, but dumb kids won't be the profitable ones.
- adamddev1 11d ago
  [dead]
- debo_ 11d ago
  We were not allowed to have graphing calculators in elementary or highschool (90s), either.
  - qwerpy 11d ago
    I was in school around that time and I always had a graphing calculator in class and most of the time in standardized tests, AP tests, etc. It was basically just math competitions that wouldn't allow it. The graphing functionality was almost never used for anything. But the multi-line display could be used for notes, which is why they were banned for competitions.
    - debo_ 11d ago
      Yeah, not us. If our calculators had more than one line or a suspicious number of buttons, it was disallowed in class.
- alpinisme 11d ago
  A graphing calculator for all knowledge work is just a(n artificial) brain. It’s not hard to see how offloading brain work to another brain makes your brain less powerful. I’m not saying you can’t be intelligent in a world of LLMs but people who use the calculator analogy underscore the fact that the LLM isn’t just eliminating the drudgery of one subdomain of mechanical problem solving — every problem is one an LLM can provide and answer for, including what you should learn, what problems you should solve, what your next conversation with the LLM should be about. So they do pose at least a threat of people truly offloading indefinite amounts of their own critical thinking to models, and there’s also danger that such people will in general still be competent enough often enough (due to LLM competence) that they are hard to screen out of key decision making roles or even from highly profitable roles.
  - jesse_dot_id 11d ago
    I truly don't understand why people think LLMs eliminate the need for mastery, or that they limit thinking. I have a lot more time to think when I use a good harness. It handles the pointless toil and I handle the thinking. I'm just thinking about different things. Instead of trying to coax the correct answers from a search engine, the LLM is doing that for me and parsing the correct output, so I'm not spending hours upon hours wading through detritus. While it's doing that, I'm using that time to think more about the problems I'm solving, the UX, etc. I'm not sure what to tell you if you think the LLM solves for novel thinking.
    - whateveracct 11d ago
      The issue is at scale. A tragedy of the commons in a way. I have seen a situation where engineers can't write code by hand if challenged to. Not one. At scale (like the juniors got quizzed as an AI sanity check and couldn't hack it.)
    - alpinisme 10d ago
      I don’t think it solves for novel thinking. I don’t think it will make better decisions than an informed and engaged human. But I don’t think there are any decisions a human is forced to make (unlike with a calculator) so people can offload any decision in particular, which is encourages, in aggregate, atrophying. And on top of that, you may find it increasingly difficult without extended time working with someone to identify them as the kind of person who has offloaded all important decisions in this way and just maintained the minimal awareness needed to keep sounding plausibly able.
- ToucanLoucan 11d ago
  > Imagine saying this about a graphing calculator, because that is essentially what the LLM is for knowledge work. A frankly hilarious statement given several key facts: * You don't get and in fact are usually barred from using a graphing calculator outside of coursework designed around it * Even when you DO use one, it is very often after years upon years of drawing graphs yourself. Analogous to LLMs even moreso than your core example, because to make use of an LLM in a way that is actually productive, you DO need to know what you're talking about with it, to suss out when it's made some bullshit up.
- bluefirebrand 11d ago
  > Imagine saying this about a graphing calculator, because that is essentially what the LLM is for knowledge work. Can you plot a graph from an equation by hand? If you can't, but you can use a graphing calculator to plot the graph then it seems like it has led to you not learning that skill. And being able to look at an equation and plot a graph in your head is pretty valuable imo
- johnnyanmac 11d ago
  Yet there were times where I was not allowed to use a graphing calculator in school tests (mid 00's). Honestly. if you are completely reliant on a graphing calc in an AP calculus course, you're definitely not getting a 5 in the exam. There is a signifigant time pressure that does not allow for that.
vlyan 11d ago
you people pretend to hold a rather romantic notion about what school education is. most kids are being educated by indifferent teachers, 40 kids at a time, with little to no opportunity to ask questions. LLMs are an incredible boon for self-education, second only to the Internet itself, being able to function as a tutor on every subject, and you're hand-wriggling about imaginary dangers of... what, exactly? I've seen the same moral panic during the commodification of Internet access in my country in mid 00's -- "students are going to cheat on their homework and become dumb!!1", blah-blah-blah-fart-blah. you only pretend to care about kids to push your politics.
- bluefirebrand 11d ago
  > most kids are being educated by indifferent teachers, 40 kids at a time, with little to no opportunity to ask question What absolute horseshit I have met a lot of teachers in my life and I don't think I have ever met one that was remotely indifferent to their students. Its not like they're getting into it for the money :/
- koof 11d ago
  > 40 kids at a time i wonder why that is. what kind of attitude towards the value of education would allow this. grok help me out here
- johnnyanmac 11d ago
  So let's get this straight: we have many underpaid, overworked teachers who aren't given the resources needed for students to succeed. Our solution to this, in lieu of better educational budgets (and appropriations of said budget), is to rely on the rugged individualism of primary schoolers to be motivated to just learn content by themselves. This being driven by trillion dollar interests who have the budget but not the incentive nor drive to actually make sure students succeed. Meanwhile, private schools who have both budget and drive will teach kids who can afford it and teach them proper railguarding against such tools. Did I get your point of view correct?
  - vlyan 11d ago
    my point of view is that "better educational budgets" is a fantasy and kids whose parents can't afford tutors -- the overwhelming majority of them -- are infinitely better off now, with LLMs being able to explain virtually anything much better than a textbook does. they are already better than most humans at it.
sejje 11d ago
Just saw this on Polymarket: JUST IN: El Salvador’s AI tutoring pilot in 171 public schools produced reading, math, & science results above the national average & comparable to Germany & Sweden.

yeah AI companies are pretty vehemently set on making kids dumb & dependent on their products for life. a school district doesn't have the power or bankroll to oppose them. what arrogance lol

jesse_dot_id 11d ago

Imagine saying this about a graphing calculator, because that is essentially what the LLM is for knowledge work. You can either be dumb and spell 8008135 or you can get an education and make it sing. They definitely want us dependent on their products for life, because that's what capitalism is, but dumb kids won't be the profitable ones.

adamddev1 11d ago
[dead]
debo_ 11d ago
We were not allowed to have graphing calculators in elementary or highschool (90s), either.
- qwerpy 11d ago
  I was in school around that time and I always had a graphing calculator in class and most of the time in standardized tests, AP tests, etc. It was basically just math competitions that wouldn't allow it. The graphing functionality was almost never used for anything. But the multi-line display could be used for notes, which is why they were banned for competitions.
  - debo_ 11d ago
    Yeah, not us. If our calculators had more than one line or a suspicious number of buttons, it was disallowed in class.
alpinisme 11d ago
A graphing calculator for all knowledge work is just a(n artificial) brain. It’s not hard to see how offloading brain work to another brain makes your brain less powerful. I’m not saying you can’t be intelligent in a world of LLMs but people who use the calculator analogy underscore the fact that the LLM isn’t just eliminating the drudgery of one subdomain of mechanical problem solving — every problem is one an LLM can provide and answer for, including what you should learn, what problems you should solve, what your next conversation with the LLM should be about. So they do pose at least a threat of people truly offloading indefinite amounts of their own critical thinking to models, and there’s also danger that such people will in general still be competent enough often enough (due to LLM competence) that they are hard to screen out of key decision making roles or even from highly profitable roles.
- jesse_dot_id 11d ago
  I truly don't understand why people think LLMs eliminate the need for mastery, or that they limit thinking. I have a lot more time to think when I use a good harness. It handles the pointless toil and I handle the thinking. I'm just thinking about different things. Instead of trying to coax the correct answers from a search engine, the LLM is doing that for me and parsing the correct output, so I'm not spending hours upon hours wading through detritus. While it's doing that, I'm using that time to think more about the problems I'm solving, the UX, etc. I'm not sure what to tell you if you think the LLM solves for novel thinking.
  - whateveracct 11d ago
    The issue is at scale. A tragedy of the commons in a way. I have seen a situation where engineers can't write code by hand if challenged to. Not one. At scale (like the juniors got quizzed as an AI sanity check and couldn't hack it.)
  - alpinisme 10d ago
    I don’t think it solves for novel thinking. I don’t think it will make better decisions than an informed and engaged human. But I don’t think there are any decisions a human is forced to make (unlike with a calculator) so people can offload any decision in particular, which is encourages, in aggregate, atrophying. And on top of that, you may find it increasingly difficult without extended time working with someone to identify them as the kind of person who has offloaded all important decisions in this way and just maintained the minimal awareness needed to keep sounding plausibly able.
ToucanLoucan 11d ago
> Imagine saying this about a graphing calculator, because that is essentially what the LLM is for knowledge work. A frankly hilarious statement given several key facts: * You don't get and in fact are usually barred from using a graphing calculator outside of coursework designed around it * Even when you DO use one, it is very often after years upon years of drawing graphs yourself. Analogous to LLMs even moreso than your core example, because to make use of an LLM in a way that is actually productive, you DO need to know what you're talking about with it, to suss out when it's made some bullshit up.
bluefirebrand 11d ago
> Imagine saying this about a graphing calculator, because that is essentially what the LLM is for knowledge work. Can you plot a graph from an equation by hand? If you can't, but you can use a graphing calculator to plot the graph then it seems like it has led to you not learning that skill. And being able to look at an equation and plot a graph in your head is pretty valuable imo
johnnyanmac 11d ago
Yet there were times where I was not allowed to use a graphing calculator in school tests (mid 00's). Honestly. if you are completely reliant on a graphing calc in an AP calculus course, you're definitely not getting a 5 in the exam. There is a signifigant time pressure that does not allow for that.

vlyan 11d ago

you people pretend to hold a rather romantic notion about what school education is. most kids are being educated by indifferent teachers, 40 kids at a time, with little to no opportunity to ask questions. LLMs are an incredible boon for self-education, second only to the Internet itself, being able to function as a tutor on every subject, and you're hand-wriggling about imaginary dangers of... what, exactly? I've seen the same moral panic during the commodification of Internet access in my country in mid 00's -- "students are going to cheat on their homework and become dumb!!1", blah-blah-blah-fart-blah. you only pretend to care about kids to push your politics.

bluefirebrand 11d ago
> most kids are being educated by indifferent teachers, 40 kids at a time, with little to no opportunity to ask question What absolute horseshit I have met a lot of teachers in my life and I don't think I have ever met one that was remotely indifferent to their students. Its not like they're getting into it for the money :/
koof 11d ago
> 40 kids at a time i wonder why that is. what kind of attitude towards the value of education would allow this. grok help me out here
johnnyanmac 11d ago
So let's get this straight: we have many underpaid, overworked teachers who aren't given the resources needed for students to succeed. Our solution to this, in lieu of better educational budgets (and appropriations of said budget), is to rely on the rugged individualism of primary schoolers to be motivated to just learn content by themselves. This being driven by trillion dollar interests who have the budget but not the incentive nor drive to actually make sure students succeed. Meanwhile, private schools who have both budget and drive will teach kids who can afford it and teach them proper railguarding against such tools. Did I get your point of view correct?
- vlyan 11d ago
  my point of view is that "better educational budgets" is a fantasy and kids whose parents can't afford tutors -- the overwhelming majority of them -- are infinitely better off now, with LLMs being able to explain virtually anything much better than a textbook does. they are already better than most humans at it.

sejje 11d ago

Just saw this on Polymarket: JUST IN: El Salvador’s AI tutoring pilot in 171 public schools produced reading, math, & science results above the national average & comparable to Germany & Sweden.