I was just thinking, "with all the AI media hype, you'd think the opposite would happen."
If "AI is gonna take over the world" wouldn't you want to be able to use such a tool yourself ?
On the other hand, paying the costs of university to have an undergrad wax poetic doesn't seem as appealing as commanding ChatGPT to "git er done" so perhaps there is "drunk on newfound power" factor at play amongst college aged coders.
DonaldPShimoda•29m ago
> If "AI is gonna take over the world" wouldn't you want to be able to use such a tool yourself ?
AI is being marketed as a tool that does not require expertise to wield, so it's unclear to me why you'd think the hype would get more people to go to college.
Anyway, the problem is likely more to do with job prospects. Most CS undergrads I talk to these days are perpetually concerned with the job market; things have not been good for a while now. And this on top of the over-enrollment problem: many schools have been accepting far more undergrads in CS than they could handle for the better part of a decade now, resulting in ultimately poorer outcomes for everyone involved except the upper administration.
Barring significant improvements to either of those issues, reducing enrollment is necessary. But society is not exactly going out of its way to help high schoolers find many viable alternatives, which is really where our efforts ought to focus, in my opinion.
Kevin_Flynn•26m ago
> AI is being marketed as a tool that does not require expertise to wield, so it's unclear to me why you'd think the hype would get more people to go to college.
Because 'marketing' is a communication method intended to maximize sales, not distribute truth.
As to the rest of it, if you want to feed yourself, you're going to need a computer. If you want a job, where someone else feeds you, they are going to need a computer.
Computers are at the core of being able to feed oneself, AI apocolypse or not.
Even the simple act of maintaining a small backyard vegetable garden, to literally feed ones family, benefits from an embedded microcontroller and pumps that release nutrients at the optimal time, in optimal amounts.
The $20 computer is a 10x win after considering material, time, and attention costs.
Which brings up an interesting question ... what percentage of universities use computers to perform marketing in order to increase enrollment ( aka sales ) in order to feed themselves ?
gbacon•45m ago
Kevin_Flynn•40m ago
If "AI is gonna take over the world" wouldn't you want to be able to use such a tool yourself ?
On the other hand, paying the costs of university to have an undergrad wax poetic doesn't seem as appealing as commanding ChatGPT to "git er done" so perhaps there is "drunk on newfound power" factor at play amongst college aged coders.
DonaldPShimoda•29m ago
AI is being marketed as a tool that does not require expertise to wield, so it's unclear to me why you'd think the hype would get more people to go to college.
Anyway, the problem is likely more to do with job prospects. Most CS undergrads I talk to these days are perpetually concerned with the job market; things have not been good for a while now. And this on top of the over-enrollment problem: many schools have been accepting far more undergrads in CS than they could handle for the better part of a decade now, resulting in ultimately poorer outcomes for everyone involved except the upper administration.
Barring significant improvements to either of those issues, reducing enrollment is necessary. But society is not exactly going out of its way to help high schoolers find many viable alternatives, which is really where our efforts ought to focus, in my opinion.
Kevin_Flynn•26m ago
Because 'marketing' is a communication method intended to maximize sales, not distribute truth.
As to the rest of it, if you want to feed yourself, you're going to need a computer. If you want a job, where someone else feeds you, they are going to need a computer.
Computers are at the core of being able to feed oneself, AI apocolypse or not.
Even the simple act of maintaining a small backyard vegetable garden, to literally feed ones family, benefits from an embedded microcontroller and pumps that release nutrients at the optimal time, in optimal amounts.
The $20 computer is a 10x win after considering material, time, and attention costs.
Which brings up an interesting question ... what percentage of universities use computers to perform marketing in order to increase enrollment ( aka sales ) in order to feed themselves ?