I for one can't wait until they put the AI in charge of running so many of our utility and agricultural systems and an AI decides what we need more of for healthy breathing is hydrogen cyanide, or that we need more heavy metals in our diets...
Then again, it was humans who made up the food pyramid gimmick and thought up radium cigarettes, so maybe we can do it all on our own.
All you'd have to do is seed a Reddit thread claiming that humans need more heavy metals in their diet because the "food pyramid" is getting too light and will float away if it's not weighed down. Get enough people snidely commenting on that -- enough to put it on the "trending" list, ideally -- and the AIs will start to take it as fact.
Yeah. In education, it’s even worse. The colloquialism of “CheatGPT” is becoming common usage for exactly the reasons you might expect. And since it’s rote testing knowledge…wheee!
I've heard (but admittedly not verified) that some teachers are using "CheatGPT" to grade their students' work. Yet they condemn students for using ChatGPT/Grok/Copilot to write it.
Either allow it on both sides, or prohibit it on both sides. I know which I'd prefer, but pick ONE.
Third option: homework as we know it must be destroyed. There is no justification for schools monopolizing children's lives, and rebellion through cheating is moral.
My experience all through middle and high school was that education and child development experts recommended that homework should take no more than two hours per day, and every single teacher acknowledged that, took it to heart, and made sure to not assign more than an hour's worth ... each ... times 6-8 classes ... every day.
Experts are still saying two hours should be the limit, but my own kids' experiences so far match mine. Every teacher assumes they're the only one using a significant portion of it, so the total load is WELL in excess of two hours.
So I agree, the current homework practices need to be overhauled if not destroyed. Hell, the public school schedule needs significant work as well. In a lot of places, high schools start 20-ish minutes before middle schools, which start 20-ish minutes before elementary schools. (And my local elementary starts at about 7:30 am.) I believe this is done so that high school students who drive get out first and can pick up their siblings, or if they don't drive, they'll be home first to watch them.
However, a developmental psychologist I know makes one hell of an argument that starting school as early in the day as we do is extremely detrimental, especially for the older kids; pre-teens' and teenagers' brains need MUCH more sleep to develop properly than those early-morning schedules allow, especially when coupled with a homework load that keeps them up at night, to say nothing of extra-curriculars that are counted an almost-universal good. High school should start at 10 am, she says -- not 7 am -- and I'm inclined to agree.
I mean, the point of education, at least in theory, is getting knowledge into kids' heads, and the point of gradable homework, in theory, is to check that the knowledge has actually made it in there. "Mental exercise", or possibly "mental strength training" is the metaphor that comes to mind.
In practice, it's not going great on either front these days. LLMs make it worse for the students, at least in the usual case where they're used to skip the exercise and go straight for the answer. Using them to grade makes (somewhat) more sense, because we're not expecting the teacher to need the exercise, but, c'mon, we can do better than that.
Get the LLM to make you a lesson script that's actually fun for the kids, and gets them their exercise in without the need for homework.
Now THAT is a valid use-case for an AI/LLM. Use it to develop a lesson plan and script, the same way people use it to meal plan or build a business model. But then implement the plan yourself.
The number of people who welcome someone (or thing) tell them what to do is staggering. It desperately needs fixing, but I have no idea how to do that.
Seconded. Since "they" are trying to kill as many "useless eaters" as possible, why not just let "them" succeed by topping themselves off, "them" being that stupid anyway? That way we might get some peace and quiet on our little space rock.
Sadly, the stupid others do also hits us as well. Sometimes literally in the case of people on the road. But more often the stupid hits us at the ballot box, because the stupid & gullible are easy to demagogue.
Ian, if I may deliver my 2cents worth after 73 rotations about the sun. For over 100 years, we (the Western world) have undertaken through government and other organizations and individual effort, attempted to completely isolate our population from consequences. I can understand to a degree the recoil from what the western humans experienced from technology driven wars and famine/suffering resulting thereof, but thist has taken a large percentage of the population out of the pool of thinkers capable of application of logic or questioning what they see/hear After all, if there are no major consequences to bad decisions, the process of existence bumbles along. Until ever larger numbers die as a result, things will not change. Is that the goal?
My 2 index fingers clacking at my keyboard can come across as pedantic, Harold.
Stupidity can either be genetic and therefore blameless, or it can be willful, a life choice to act in a stupid fashion. Stupid & ignorant may be synonyms but I kind of prefer nuance in the use of the 2 words. No one is accountable for the genes they have, only for the ones they spread.
Thanks for the nuance in your reply, "Willful Ignorance(TM)". You did that better than me. ☺
There's a whole lot of ignorant people with high IQ's in this world. Orwell once noted that some ideas are so obviously stupid that only the Intellectuals could believe them.
However, I know a few folks that don't have the highest of IQ's, but a whole lot of wisdom.
Nah. It's been this way for a while. It's just that "believe whatever the magic authority box tells you unquestioningly" was meant to make you follow Teachers and Journalists.
And while it is going to have some unfortunate and tragic consequences along the way, the magic confident sounding box being wrong and obviously wrong is going to help us undo that damage.
Ian, it could be worse. Go to the local bar association events and buy the family law lawyers a drink if you want to see just how bad human stupidity can get...
Devo was right: Devolution is real.
I for one can't wait until they put the AI in charge of running so many of our utility and agricultural systems and an AI decides what we need more of for healthy breathing is hydrogen cyanide, or that we need more heavy metals in our diets...
Then again, it was humans who made up the food pyramid gimmick and thought up radium cigarettes, so maybe we can do it all on our own.
It'll probably just substitute Brawndo for water in irrigation. Because, you know, it's got what plants crave.
Electrolytes, it's what plants crave.
Brawndo! It's got what plants crave!!!
You want scary? AI in charge of NORAD.
DO YOU WANT TO PLAY A GAME?
:-)
All you'd have to do is seed a Reddit thread claiming that humans need more heavy metals in their diet because the "food pyramid" is getting too light and will float away if it's not weighed down. Get enough people snidely commenting on that -- enough to put it on the "trending" list, ideally -- and the AIs will start to take it as fact.
Yeah. In education, it’s even worse. The colloquialism of “CheatGPT” is becoming common usage for exactly the reasons you might expect. And since it’s rote testing knowledge…wheee!
I've heard (but admittedly not verified) that some teachers are using "CheatGPT" to grade their students' work. Yet they condemn students for using ChatGPT/Grok/Copilot to write it.
Either allow it on both sides, or prohibit it on both sides. I know which I'd prefer, but pick ONE.
Third option: homework as we know it must be destroyed. There is no justification for schools monopolizing children's lives, and rebellion through cheating is moral.
My experience all through middle and high school was that education and child development experts recommended that homework should take no more than two hours per day, and every single teacher acknowledged that, took it to heart, and made sure to not assign more than an hour's worth ... each ... times 6-8 classes ... every day.
Experts are still saying two hours should be the limit, but my own kids' experiences so far match mine. Every teacher assumes they're the only one using a significant portion of it, so the total load is WELL in excess of two hours.
So I agree, the current homework practices need to be overhauled if not destroyed. Hell, the public school schedule needs significant work as well. In a lot of places, high schools start 20-ish minutes before middle schools, which start 20-ish minutes before elementary schools. (And my local elementary starts at about 7:30 am.) I believe this is done so that high school students who drive get out first and can pick up their siblings, or if they don't drive, they'll be home first to watch them.
However, a developmental psychologist I know makes one hell of an argument that starting school as early in the day as we do is extremely detrimental, especially for the older kids; pre-teens' and teenagers' brains need MUCH more sleep to develop properly than those early-morning schedules allow, especially when coupled with a homework load that keeps them up at night, to say nothing of extra-curriculars that are counted an almost-universal good. High school should start at 10 am, she says -- not 7 am -- and I'm inclined to agree.
I won’t disagree on that, either. The joke proceeds thusly:
Q:How do you feel about the DepEd?
A: Burn it to ash, mix the ashes to cement, toss the cement bricks into the Marianas Trench or the nearest convenient volcano.
Q: What?! Why?! Don’t you care about teachers?
A: I -am- a teacher.
I mean, the point of education, at least in theory, is getting knowledge into kids' heads, and the point of gradable homework, in theory, is to check that the knowledge has actually made it in there. "Mental exercise", or possibly "mental strength training" is the metaphor that comes to mind.
In practice, it's not going great on either front these days. LLMs make it worse for the students, at least in the usual case where they're used to skip the exercise and go straight for the answer. Using them to grade makes (somewhat) more sense, because we're not expecting the teacher to need the exercise, but, c'mon, we can do better than that.
Get the LLM to make you a lesson script that's actually fun for the kids, and gets them their exercise in without the need for homework.
Now THAT is a valid use-case for an AI/LLM. Use it to develop a lesson plan and script, the same way people use it to meal plan or build a business model. But then implement the plan yourself.
The number of people who welcome someone (or thing) tell them what to do is staggering. It desperately needs fixing, but I have no idea how to do that.
For agood laugh at the etymology of gullible, see https://www.etymonline.com/word/gullible
"Think of it as Evolution in Action".
Seconded. Since "they" are trying to kill as many "useless eaters" as possible, why not just let "them" succeed by topping themselves off, "them" being that stupid anyway? That way we might get some peace and quiet on our little space rock.
Sadly, the stupid others do also hits us as well. Sometimes literally in the case of people on the road. But more often the stupid hits us at the ballot box, because the stupid & gullible are easy to demagogue.
Ian, if I may deliver my 2cents worth after 73 rotations about the sun. For over 100 years, we (the Western world) have undertaken through government and other organizations and individual effort, attempted to completely isolate our population from consequences. I can understand to a degree the recoil from what the western humans experienced from technology driven wars and famine/suffering resulting thereof, but thist has taken a large percentage of the population out of the pool of thinkers capable of application of logic or questioning what they see/hear After all, if there are no major consequences to bad decisions, the process of existence bumbles along. Until ever larger numbers die as a result, things will not change. Is that the goal?
Finally. A counter to warning labels and safety briefs.
Bravo Ian, stupid is everyone's insidious enemy.
Stupid can be a heritable trait, Harold. Willful ignorance is, I think, the more insidious enemy.
Dale, I would classify Willful Ignorance(TM) as one of the subsets of Classic Stupidity.
My 2 index fingers clacking at my keyboard can come across as pedantic, Harold.
Stupidity can either be genetic and therefore blameless, or it can be willful, a life choice to act in a stupid fashion. Stupid & ignorant may be synonyms but I kind of prefer nuance in the use of the 2 words. No one is accountable for the genes they have, only for the ones they spread.
Thanks for the nuance in your reply, "Willful Ignorance(TM)". You did that better than me. ☺
Dale, I did not interpret your post as pedadantic, and hope mine was not seen likewise. Thanks for the compliment, however little I deserve it.
There's a whole lot of ignorant people with high IQ's in this world. Orwell once noted that some ideas are so obviously stupid that only the Intellectuals could believe them.
However, I know a few folks that don't have the highest of IQ's, but a whole lot of wisdom.
Sure. Sodium bromide is a sedative, may cause dizziness and internal organ damage over time.
Don't we have enough 'approved' foodstuffs that can do the same?
Increasingly stupid?
Nah. It's been this way for a while. It's just that "believe whatever the magic authority box tells you unquestioningly" was meant to make you follow Teachers and Journalists.
And while it is going to have some unfortunate and tragic consequences along the way, the magic confident sounding box being wrong and obviously wrong is going to help us undo that damage.
It's not helping that we're importing 80 IQ people by the tens of millions either.
We're just doing our part to make the rest of the world smarter!
And that's the *average, though some studies place it even lower.
Read C. J. Kornblith's The Marching Morons for a dystopic view of where this might end.
And, clinically, if I never again hear "I know my body, I need the Z Pack!" for Cletus's viral cold, it will still be too soon!
^ https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51233/51233-h/51233-h.htm
I've often told people that AI will kill our ability to think and end creativity. Proof here.
Ian, it could be worse. Go to the local bar association events and buy the family law lawyers a drink if you want to see just how bad human stupidity can get...
I believe there is some Benevolent Deity staring down at us wondering not if we are going to survive but should we.