we used to do this thing called "learning".

"what did students do before chatgpt?"

Is this supposed to be an actual quote? Like, someone said this unironically?

Can confirm, in college I mostly partied and screwed around, but thanks to years of practice at procrastination I had by then developed the skill of throwing anything together at the last minute. So I could go to the library after dinner the night before a paper was due, find the right shelf, grab a handful of books and write a rough draft of an essay in couple hours. Back in the dorm by 10pm, I would make some edits, type it up (this was in the typewriter era), and turn it in on time for at least a B. But like I said, this was after years of putting off assignments in elementary and high school. Turns out this is an extremely valuable skill in office environments, where due to poor planning there's frequently some crisis that has to be solved ASAFP. People who can come through with decent work under completely unrealistic deadline pressure become all-stars. LPT: if you're actually doing that and not getting the credit and rewards you deserve, move somewhere else - you've valuable.

We haven't had LLMs that long. Are people seriously already forgetting the concept of learning skills?

My nephew wants to be instantly good at things and it drives me crazy. He'll roll his eyes and say "of course you're going to make that shot (in billiards) or get frustrated that's he's not amazing without practicing in martial arts, video games, golf, fitness, etc. I'm sure he'll grow out of it, but in the meantime he won't work at it or accept instruction. I'm like "yeah dude, I've done this thousands of times. Let me help you!"

Using chatgpt to do your school work is like paying/beating up a nerd to do your work for you. You won't learn shit, and there is a chance you'll get in trouble for cheating.

I had a friend in high school who did the hand drawing exercise, it does work. He got really good at drawing hands.

It's not snide to say "skills are developed with practise". You want to de-skill by letting an idiot machine say wrong stuff while you rot? Go ahead.

ChatGPT land this plane with the engine failed for me. ChatGPT do this triple bypass heat surgery for me.

I’m sure that people will come up with excuses why this is different than cheating on an essay, but the point is that if one can’t study for the basic shit then doing the hard shit is going to be even harder. It’s not flipping a switch and saying “ok now I’ll take it all seriously…”. Then again, someone shirking basic work skills is probably destined for a retail middle manager job and not someone headed for radiology.

before chatgpt i simply didn't do all homework; if it was too tedious i said "fuck it" and left it out.

obviously that tanked my grades but i'm not in school to get good grades, i'm in school to learn interesting stuff.

Zoomers are worse the fucking boomers and alphas are going to be worse still.

I remember a comic I read at some point long ago, where power had gone out and a bored kid asks his grandma: "what did you do before TVs existed?" and the grandma says: "we would just sit around and wait for TVs to be invented".

I'm now using that answer everytime I see a "what did you do before ___ was invented?"

The best thing about being a human is that you can learn anything you want, to accomplish what you need to. Want to create an app, a framework, but don't know how to code? Guess what, you can learn how to code. Want to write a story or an essay? You can learn how to write. Learning to satiate my curiosity about something; learning something so that I can accomplish something are the best things about my life. That is how I learnt programming. I don't want anything to replace that for me, especially not some shit-generating LLM.

The issue is that only some of them intrinsically want to get gud. They want other people to do the shit they don't want to do. They're happy to let a robot do the stuff they're bored by but there are things that for some reason some teachers think is super important every student learn but are actually just shit the teacher is emotionally attached to. I know, I work at an after school program. We have no curriculum but most of my fellow counselors are also teachers (or substitute teachers) and they are obsessed with getting ALL of the kids to care about every topic they teach. I get along with them interpersonally, and one is even my friend but they are petty tyrants with the kids IMO and I get into methodological arguments with them here and there.

Most kids have a niche, I say let them focus on it. Not try and force all of them to be jack of all trades unless its bare bones basics of functioning (Reading, writing, math, scientific method/reasoning).

I remember being a kid that loved reading and writing, did great (lots of 100s or at least 90+) at generic vocab/english assignments and the like. But then whenever I had to read a book I did not give a shit about or write an essay about something I had zero interest in it was like I was trying to telepathically push an mountain with a single functioning neuron. I just couldn't do it at all so I'd get zeros on those assignments.

The moment the book seemed cool or the writing topic was fairly open ended I usually did fantastic and even surprised teachers in a few cases. Had it been available to me I 100% would of ChatGPT'd the shit I did not care about but I'd totally do the stuff I was intrinsically interested in anyways without ChatGPT.

I agree with the general idea of learning through doing. But buddy if your teaching system depends on suffering of the students, maybe them using AI is a symptom and not the problem you need to solve.

Cocaine