"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"
A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
The year was 2010. I was taking a required English class for my degree. The final was a surprise hand written essay. That final might as well have been raising a barn for most of the class.
I might have been in trouble if it was cursive. Fucking capital G
Meme aside, it's refreshing to see punctuation used in a meme, and it makes it so much easier to read
😆
I think I only ever did that once or twice, and it was not for a good grade. Yeah, English was definitely not my strong suite... even now. But I can at least write a mean story and/or fanfiction when I don't have writers block. And I don't mean something you'd see a young tween write on DeviantArt.
That's more than cog suckers could ever hope to achieve.
It's been a while since I was in school, but it annoyed me that for things like this teachers rewarded either parroting whatever they told us or just mindlessly copying content we found somewhere else (also quantity > quality, which sucked also because we had to write everything by hand). If AI could at least make them value actual thinking for a change, it'd be nice.
Let me tell you about the time I failed a class for doing extra work. It was a graduate level ethics class, the only F I have on my transcript (and, of course, EVERYONE who sees my transcipts wants to know why I failed ethics in grad school):
The class was Christian Ethics (I was in a theological program) and I had already begun doing my own reading in postmodern theology, which overlapped a lot with Christian ethics. So, when I wrote papers, I drew upon the work I had been reading (which was extra from what was on the syllabus), articulating different approaches to ethical issues based on that work--like I assumed one did in a graduate level course. Every paper I got back was graded terribly. Guys in my class who barely read stuff were acing the class. I couldn't understand. So when I got my failing grade, I considered a few options, deciding on taking a directed study with the professor of the class in the hopes that I could better understand what went wrong.
It was halfway through that directed study that I realized the dude just wanted me to regurgitate the syllabus back at him. He wanted me to basically parrot back his own stuff. Once I figured that out, I did much better. But my wife thinks it's hilarious that I got an F in grad school for doing too much work.
I'm guilty of perhaps learning a bit too late that in school you're supposed to learn how to learn as opposed to learning every specific thing that they teach you.
What you went through is a prime example of the "don't-get-too-involved" that seems like a workable approach to many things in life, and that teacher was maybe well aware of the irony of it all.
LMAO I hated the Great Gatsby and guessed the ending, even some subtext. It was so bad that everyone that read the book, couldn't for the life of them answer that question right on the test. I have bullshitted tests, papers, and a variety of things by having forming an opinion on the subtext, actual text, and unearned confidence. If I had time, I would read opinions and papers of others to form opinions that could hold more water than a teaspoon (in my opinion). These clankers that lean on LLMs are doing themselves a MASSIVE disservice.
pfff. the Great Gatsby was nothing. now let me give you a book that we hated. Cry the Beloved Country. We had to bullshit discussion groups about it. And we were good at it.
Lol here we have final exams where you have to write long answers. The art of writing slop is still alive and kicking.
Handcrafted slop.
Artisanal slop.
Written by hand. Not just once, if you wanted a good grade. You needed at least one draft to correct mistakes. And, some teachers required the paper to be written in ink.
But, I read the book, too.
We taught my son to read, we knew we couldn't trust the schools to do it well. He read above grade level all through school. Being able to read well means you'll always be able to learn. Schools don't want us to be knowledgeable, they want us to be useful to the billionaires.
Good on you as a parent. The majority of parents can't be arsed to teach their children anything.
Teachers can only teach so much without mommy and daddy help. I spent 4 years teaching math at my very small local school. I taught kids from 4th grade to 7th grade. Class size was as small as 4 and as large as 16. I learned very quickly that I needed to be part Grandpa, part child psychologist, part special ed and a teacher. There is no way I could teach every student everyday in the best manor that each of them them needed.
One kid had parents that didn't care. One came from a dirt poor home and I mean dirt poor. Another was ADHD, another autistic, another was very smart and had to either help the other kids or be bored. Others had broken homes and couldn't even live with either parent. Aunts and Grandmothers were raising them.
Tell me, how am I supposed to teach all the math that is needed to all of those kids every day and at a level that meets your exceptions? You should try standing in front of a classroom sometime.
The best thing you can do for your children is to take and active hand in their education at all levels. Whether is reading, math, science, or history. Be involved!
we knew we couldn’t trust the schools to do it well
I am old enough to be taught to read at school (as in actually read and understand). But damn did I not expect school was going to fail next generation even here
I wrote a five page essay in the six hours before the 9am deadline, while high as balls. Kids these days gotta lock in. And do more drugs.
My HS English classes were heavily discussion based, and I learned pretty early on that if I didn't have time to read the entire assignment for a class that I'd better get pretty interested in a couple of random sentences across the chapters we were supposed to read. Had to dredge up some meaning about word choice from a pretty narrow selection and make the commentary on it sound good so the teacher wouldn't call on you any further.
I think it wasn't until college that I wrote entire papers without finishing the whole book though.
I'm actually teaching some students who honest to God are in their early teens and LITERALLY cannot string two sentences together. I never want to hear anybody tell me about how writing assignments were a waste of time again, because I can PERSONALLY vouch that if you don't practice it, you literally cannot do it at all.
Essay writing (for example exercises that you are arguing for one side vs the other) is major part how you learn critical thinking.
I suspect that the educated people who were anti vax during covid most likely paid others to write essays for them.
I think it can play a part and help many though your statement feels as though you're implying it's required for critical thinking. I could be wrong however. I bring it up because I don't feel like the essays I've had to write contributed to my understanding of critical thinking as much as empathy did.
If you didn't mean it that way, carry on! If you did, I'd be very interested to learn what makes it intrinsic to the critical thinking framework.
True story: I once made up an entire book during recess because I forgot the assignment. The teacher probably was aware but gave good grades because I was the only one who kept on going instead of summarising the book in under a minute.
In other words no, we don't need ai.
So true, I would write entire essays off of the summaries on Wikipedia. My teacher's either didn't notice or didn't care.
The older I get, the more I realise that the teachers understood that we didn’t read the materials and didn’t respect the process, didn’t put earnest effort in, effectively lied our way through high school.
We all used pinkmonkey.com.
But still. We who tried at the literal eleventh hour to deceive and feign knowledge. We were best in breed.
I shudder to think about my generation in leadership roles.
We got good marks because of pluck, audacity, and sheer tyranny of will. Not because we deserved them. And it was known, to an extent, by both sides.
We are looking at each other in a mirror.
My daughter got nearly mobbed by her co-students for "not telling which AI she used for writing her papers". Her papers were regularly applauded for her good writing. She hates AI with a vengeance and wrote all her papers on her own. She is just good at thiski'd of thing.
thiski'd
Come again?
And now anyone who is even remotely good at creative writing or even just passably literate with a good vocabulary are forever going to have their works called into question.
On the other hand, there is no better praise than having some Gen Z kid with terminal brain rot accuse you of talking like an AI model. I accept that implied insult like a gamer accepting a hackusation - I'm winning so much that you can't discern cheating from skill.
On the bus on the way to school when it was due in the first period.
I did that once for some big assignment. I got a B and a "you can do better" from the teacher.
Skim the book, read a couple reviews online, find a couple random quotes from the book, then write a 10 page comparative essay discussing how the book relates to American exceptionalism and do it again next week.
Spark Notes saved me tons of times.
I wrote them by hand, in cursive. But not before I made a harvard outline.
But seriously if anyone out there is actually trying to write an essay, the harvard outline model is legit for organizing and setting up.
Nice. Been a while since I’ve seen that. I used mind maps, then structured. This seems like the clean version but mine I could write on a chalk/whiteboard before I hand wrote it in the Harvard format. 2000+ word essays, several pages long, MLA style. Always an A.
Outlines have always driven me insane. I prefer to write like a deranged animal and then restructure as necessary
Never saw anything like that, but I more or less gravitated towards something like that. Just Intro - Point 1 - Point 2 - Point 3 - Conclusion
Yeah, this is some basic stuff, but I guess it's good to have formalized to teach people. I don't recall what method I was taught, but it was something similar to this. I don't ever remember using it so formally though. Just basically outline what you're going to go over, and then fill it all in. I think almost all formal structures like this should be abandoned once you understand how they function, and it should be adapted to what works best for you. The formal version is just a starting point.
I think being super formal like this method really pays off when you have to collaborate. Far easier, more efficient and accurate to say "Look a section IV.c and tell me what you think." Rather than "that one part with the dude, ya know"
Most writing outlines are for yourself though, but yeah, when it's in an organization you need something formalized, at minimum just so you can quickly find what you need to find. If every person has their own system of organizing things then it's going to be a mess.
This is the first time I've ever heard this had a name.