California bill (AB 412) would effectively ban open-source generative AI

[Jfdlsjfd]

I would give it a "C+" as an impersonation. But given what it had to work with...not bad. I don't think my job is in danger yet, though.

I am glad to see that your career as an impersonator is promising to be long and profitable!

 

[Clint_L]

Our general consensus points from yesterday, as teachers who’ve been grappling with AI for a few years now:

A) as a content generator it mostly produces palatable BS. From a teaching perspective, it’s worse that just skipping the assignment. Bad writing, I can work with. LLM writing is worthless.

There are exceptions for tasks that involve iterating on ideas, but these assume the student has enough knowledge to begin with.

B) it can be pretty useful as a means of getting feedback on work. Not editing work, which robs it of the authors voice, but getting ideas about what the student should edit.

C) it’s highly risky as a search engine, though being able to write prompts in natural language is great.

I think teachers focus too much on how to stop students from cheating, instead of recognizing that most assessments are designed to incentivize it. If we shifted our assessments towards process rather than product, we would have a lot less teaching and a lot more learning. But everyone thinks it’s all about earning grades.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Our general consensus points from yesterday, as teachers who’ve been grappling with AI for a few years now:

A) as a content generator it mostly produces palatable BS. From a teaching perspective, it’s worse that just skipping the assignment. Bad writing, I can work with. LLM writing is worthless.

There are exceptions for tasks that involve iterating on ideas, but these assume the student has enough knowledge to begin with.

B) it can be pretty useful as a means of getting feedback on work. Not editing work, which robs it of the authors voice, but getting ideas about what the student should edit.

C) it’s highly risky as a search engine, though being able to write prompts in natural language is great.

I think teachers focus too much on how to stop students from cheating, instead of recognizing that most assessments are designed to incentivize it. If we shifted our assessments towards process rather than product, we would have a lot less teaching and a lot more learning. But everyone thinks it’s all about earning grades.

Teacher here (3rd Grade so AI is less of an issue).

Talking about this with a colleague this week, and I think it's going to really force a rethinking of how and why students create products like essays. I read an article from a professor who basically said that the students who are going to use AI are the same students who would be using plagiarism or would be trying to just write the essay in order to get a grade, not to actually learn anything. I think it's a good opportunity to stop and think, "Why are we having the students do this?" Is an essay the best way for the students to show their knowledge?

Hopefully instead of just focusing on catching cheating students, educators will be able to start coming up with assignments beyond an essay.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Teacher here (3rd Grade so AI is less of an issue).

Talking about this with a colleague this week, and I think it's going to really force a rethinking of how and why students create products like essays. I read an article from a professor who basically said that the students who are going to use AI are the same students who would be using plagiarism or would be trying to just write the essay in order to get a grade, not to actually learn anything. I think it's a good opportunity to stop and think, "Why are we having the students do this?" Is an essay the best way for the students to show their knowledge?

Hopefully instead of just focusing on catching cheating students, educators will be able to start coming up with assignments beyond an essay.

Essay writing teaches you to communicate effectively and to organise your thoughts. I think it's a valuable exercise myself.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Essay writing teaches you to communicate effectively and to organise your thoughts. I think it's a valuable exercise myself.

While this is true, there needs to be a focus on the process, not just the product. Students will use AI to create their essays if the only focus is on earning a grade. I think there's going to have to be a focus on the process now since the product can just be made with a prompt and the click of a button.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

While this is true, there needs to be a focus on the process, not just the product. Students will use AI to create their essays if the only focus is on earning a grade. I think there's going to have to be a focus on the process now since the product can just be made with a prompt and the click of a button.

If you couple the essay with an in-class presentation by the student discussing the essay...

 

[Paul Farquhar]

He also went for his favorite food and had a date with his wife, only to realize that

She was having an affair with the computer.

 

[OB1]

Our general consensus points from yesterday, as teachers who’ve been grappling with AI for a few years now:

A) as a content generator it mostly produces palatable BS. From a teaching perspective, it’s worse that just skipping the assignment. Bad writing, I can work with. LLM writing is worthless.

There are exceptions for tasks that involve iterating on ideas, but these assume the student has enough knowledge to begin with.

B) it can be pretty useful as a means of getting feedback on work. Not editing work, which robs it of the authors voice, but getting ideas about what the student should edit.

C) it’s highly risky as a search engine, though being able to write prompts in natural language is great.

I think teachers focus too much on how to stop students from cheating, instead of recognizing that most assessments are designed to incentivize it. If we shifted our assessments towards process rather than product, we would have a lot less teaching and a lot more learning. But everyone thinks it’s all about earning grades.

I think this is spot on.

I just returned to college as a student after 30 years (changing careers as I could no longer find work in the movie biz post the last strike) and am finding AI to be an invaluable tool. Not to do the work, but to help me learn. For example, in my Statistics class, when I get stuck on a problem, I can ask Chat GPT about it and it will walk me thru the steps to solve it, and I can follow up with questions around other scenarios and such. Basically, it's like having a great tutor that I don't have to pay for.

For my English Comp class, I don't use it to write my paper, but I did use it first to brainstorm ideas and then to 'grade' the paper I wrote when it was finished (it gave me a B+). The 'grading' piece was interesting, as it provided quite a few good suggestions (along with a few garbage ones) to improve my paper. Nothing to take whole cloth and replace paragraphs, more of food for thought on how to make a better argument for my thesis. It also rightly pointed out that the back half of the essay felt rushed and underdeveloped compared to the first half.