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fnordpiglet | on: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes
LLMS didn’t invent cheating just made it easier. When you cheat you’re the one who cheats yourself because the point of an education is to learn, not complete the assignments and get high marks on tests alone. No one benefits and no one other than you is materially hurt by cheating, but you are absolutely the one who is hurt.

There’s no way to learn than to force the brain into adaptation which it is resistant to do through challenge and stress, just like your muscles. Similarly you can’t play e sports and get into physical condition any more than you can use LLMs to do your homework and learn.

It’s going to be a hard adjustment for a lot of people to recognize that letting the machine think for you is as healthy as smoking brain cigarettes.

The smart student uses the LLM as a proctor or provide challenges and feedback on attempts rather than an easy button. They make great tools for learning if they’re used as an adversarial or editorial tool. The future belongs to those who work to use the tools in ways that make themselves more efficacious, not those who use efficacious tools so they don’t have to work.

PapstJL4U | parent | next
>The smart student uses the LLM as a proctor or provide challenges and feedback on attempts rather than an easy button.

Yeah, this is how we used wolframalpha for Math as students. Whatever we had to do, we did it ourself as a group of three. Afterwards we checked with Wolframaplha to see if we were correct. If there were any difference between us, we went line by line to find where the error appeared.

It was helpful, because we did it ourself, but because the work was graded, we had the security, that it is not a total failure.

LEDThereBeLight | parent | next
To say that students don’t benefit from getting good grades using LLMs is incredibly naive. Learning is only about the third or fourth most important “benefit” for students, after getting a degree, getting good grades, and making connections.
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boelboel | parent | next
The problem with AI in an educational setting is when one is graded versus their students on things and things genuinely depend on those grades. Group projects also force those willing to do things without AI to go along with others in their group who'll use it regardless.
technothrasher | root | parent
My son just finished his first year in college, and had no trouble getting decent grades without using AI while many of the kids around him were using it. At least in his humanities track, class participation is a lot of his grade, and he said the "AI kids" tended to suck at participation because they hadn't actually thought about the material, and couldn't dynamically work with it in class. He also said their AI assisted writing that he'd read was dull and unoriginal, and all sounded the same, which he thought likely helped his essays stand out. His English composition teacher said he was "probably too advanced for this class" when he told her he didn't use AI to write his essays, which made him roll his eyes, as he has clinically diagnosed dysgraphia (learning disability in writing).
boelboel | root | parent
Makes sense the ones who can't tell that AI does a piss poor job at writing get bad grades. In a humanities track I can certainly see how going basically completely no AI should be an advantage. Even in a other tracks it should be better, especially if professors think out assignments well. Group assignments are my biggest worry as in some classes they can really make/break a grade, working with those believing in AI would certainly be a disadvantage.
WalterBright | parent
You're right.

But I like to add artwork to my presentations. My artistic skills have not advanced beyond 2nd grade. So I'll make a line sketch, and give to AI to "fix" it.

The results are nice and I use them.

I have no interest in learning how to do art well myself, so using AI for it is appropriate.

But I still write my code myself.

wffurr | root | parent | next
>> The results are nice and I use them.

I haven't seen your presentations, so I can't speak to them. But I do know at work there's a lot more illustrations in docs and presentations and such, and they almost all have an AI art "tell". I find them grating and distracting from the actual content. Very rarely do they add anything useful to the doc other than the knowledge that the owner burned some GPU time and tokens for a distracting, low value illustration.

I can only imagine how an actual artist or graphic designer feels about it.

Actually I don't have to imagine; there's some serious vitriol over on some of my favorite webcomics about it.

sph | root | parent
> But I still write my code myself.

Not for long, if you so easily have caved in to using AI elsewhere. People are lazy. If you see that the 'results are nice', it's game over for your programming/thinking.

Waiting for the day the advice will be to "enjoy AI assistance in moderation"