Neal Koblitz's "The Case Against Computers in Math Education".
> "Youngsters who are immersed in this popular culture are accustomed to large doses of passive, visual entertainment. They tend to develop a short attention span, and expect immediate gratification. They are usually ill equipped to study mathematics, because they lack patience, self-discipline, the ability to concentrate for long periods, and reading comprehension and writing skills."
For context, the essay is from 1996. You could have told me this is from the current year and I would have believed you.
Agreed. It's a matter of degree, and I wonder what reaching the eventual limit (if there is one) looks like.
In my open letter, I wouldn't say "ethical" or "environmental" or any of these intersectional things because you're giving space for lies.
People want ethical AI even if it's impossible. So we get aspirationally ethical AI. Meaning, people really want to use generative AI, it makes life so easy, and people also want it to be ethical, because they don't want to make others upset, so they will buy into a memetic story that it is "ethical." Even if that story isn't true.
Aspirationally ethics already got hundreds of millions of dollars in funding. Like look at generative AI in the media industry. Moonvalley - "FULLY LICENSED, COMMERCIAL SAFE" (https://www.moonvalley.com) - and yet, what content was their text encoder trained on? Not "fully licensed," no not at all. Does everything else they make work without a text encoder? No. So... But people really want to believe in this. And it's led by DeepMind people! Adobe has the same problem. Some efforts are extremely well meaning. But everyone claiming expressly licensed / permissioned datasets is telling a lie by omission.
It's not possible to have only permissioned data. Anthropic and OpenAI concede, there's no technology without scraping. Listen, they're telling the truth.
AI should be trained on all data that is available. For a significant part of the dataset, it's the most useful that data has ever been.
This blanket dismissal is not going to age well, and reads like a profession lashing out.
With the right system prompt, AI can be a patient, understanding, encouraging, non-judgemental tutor that adapts and moves at the student's pace. Most students can not afford that type of human tutor, but an AI one could be free or very affordable.
"How AI Could Save (Not Destroy) Education" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJP5GqnTrNo) from Sal Khan of Khan Academy
I think the original phrase was made with the assumption "as it is right now".
I do share concerns of undersigned, even though don't necessarily agree with all statements in the letter.
AI has enormous upsides and enormous downsides. The "you're going to look so dumb in the future" dismissal is lazy. Inevitability does not make something purely beneficial.
It's a fallacious line of thinking that's disappointingly common in tech-minded people (frequently seen in partnership with implications that Luddites were bad or stupid, quotes from historical criticisms of computers/calculators, and other immature usage of metaphor).
Groan... no it can't. It can simulate all those things, but at the moment, "AI" can't be patient, understanding, and whether judgemental or non-judgemental.
OK it can be encouraging. "You're one good student, $STUDENT_NAME!" (1).
I really can’t understand why people don’t understand this. What am I missing?
Now is that a simulation of someone who thinks he's responding to a cretin... or actually the feelings of someone who thinks he's talking to a cretin?
1. To do the homework because they view classes and grades as a barrier to their future instead of preparation for such.
2. In place of a well crafted query in an academic database.
I agree but I have never seen an education system that had this as a goal. It's also not what society or employers actually want. What is desired are drones / automatons that take orders and never push back. Teaching people about agency is the opposite of that.
We are so stuck in a 19th century factory mindset everywhere, GenAI is just making it even more obvious.
It's really annoying that political stuff always pollutes things. I largely agree with the position about GenAI being bad for education, but that position is not strengthened by tacking on a bunch of political drivel.
The best option is to change the incentives. 95% of kids treat school as a necessary hurdle to enter the gentry white-collar class. Either make the incentives personal enrichment instead of letter grades or continue to give students every incentive to use AI at every opportunity.
To the degree it is possible I would like to think the AI community would try to address their issues.
I understand that some of the items in their open letter show a complete incompatibility with AI — period. But misinformation, harmful biases, energy resource use should be things we all want to improve.
You can ask every dumb question. You can ask for clarification on every term you don't understand. You can go off on tangents. You can ask the same thing again ten minutes later because you forgot already.
No teacher or tutor or peer is going to answer you with the same patience and the same depth and the same lack of judgement.
Is it good enough for a grad student working on their thesis? Maybe not. Is it good enough for a high school student. Almost certainly. Does it give this high school student a way to better _really_ understand biology because they can keep asking questions until they start to understand the answers. I think absolutely.
amelius•4h ago
luqtas•4h ago
multjoy•4h ago
somanyphotons•4h ago
(10^15 + 7.2 − 10^15) * 100
sfpotter•4h ago
mulmen•3h ago
If you want an LLM to do math you just ask it to write a program with tests.
throwaway422432•1h ago
monero-xmr•3h ago
rel_ic•3h ago
monero-xmr•2h ago
mulmen•2h ago
monero-xmr•2h ago
mulmen•46s ago
123yawaworht456•1h ago
DavidPiper•3h ago
No you don't give arithmetic students calculators for their exams, and you expect them to know how to do it without one.
Yes you probably give professionals who need to do arithmetic calculators so they can do it faster and with less errors.
Giving calculators to people who don't know how, why and/or when to use them will still get you bad results.
Giving calculators to someone who doesn't have any use for one is at best a waste of money and at worst a huge waste of time if the recipient becomes addicted to calculator games.
izacus•3h ago
DavidPiper•2h ago
mulmen•2h ago
mulmen•3h ago
Why not? Seems like a logical conclusion.
1. Introduce the concept.
2. Demonstrate an intuitive algorithm.
3. Assist students as they practice and internalize the algorithm.
4. Reinforce this learning by encouraging them to teach each other.
5. Show them how to use tools by repeating this process with the tool as the concept.
darth_avocado•2h ago
Restricting AI completely or introducing it too early, both would be harmful.
stephen_g•3h ago