Berkeley math prof gives up on marking homework.

blackbird9

blackbird9

nypost.com

UC Berkeley professor refuses to grade his students’ homework after noticing worrying trend: ‘No point’

Richard Borcherds, a Fields Medal–winning mathematician, now grades on completion after seeing students use AI to earn top scores.
nypost.com nypost.com

The problem with this is, you rapidly end up with students who don't learn how to do the math themselves, and who only know how to ask an AI to do the work for them. It's hard to see a way out of it in a system where the students are competitively graded against each other. The ones who genuinely want to learn, but who can't work as fast as the AI, will inevitably suffer lower grades compared to the ones who use AI to do the work, so the system automatically hands a competitive advantage to the students who use AI to do their homework. With the consequence that, within a short period of time, those students are reduced to dependency on the AI and become unable to do the work by themselves, so the educational process becomes self-defeating. Or, you could say, the educational process trains them to use AI, and preferentially selects for those students who are the most adept at using it.

You may as well hand the students an answer book and tell them they can either do the work themselves, or copy the answer from the book and hand that in as their own work. Apart from anything else, if no-one is allowed to make 'mistakes', no one will be able to learn from their 'mistakes'.

The same is going to be true of many other fields. The result is 'programmers' who can't program, 'doctors' who don't know medicine, 'engineers' who don't understand engineering, etc. Everything becomes "vibe". If the AI ever gets switched off, they will be lost.

And the corollary to that process is the concentration of economic power, within an ever smaller segment of the population. Human intelligence no longer has value. You're either in the 0.001%, or you're a peasant.

Is this the future? Discuss...
 
I lapsed in Math because I had to learn a lot of other subjects, which had little use for me.
Math professor did just two tests in half a year. First one was ambush and you got F. Second one was copied from other classes, so you got A. Final mark was C then.
Ai would save me there. Because I would have more time to learn Math. Or if the professor tested us in person eye to eye it would force me to prioritize it. But he was too busy/lazy for that.
Ai is not lazy or busy. So if you need to learn Math, you can. And you can flunk with it the rest of subjects.

Human intelligence will have less value. Yes. But cheaters won't be able to shield behind diplomas - let's face it, even without Ai a lot of really dumb people got good grades.
And you get access to the intelligence in form of Ai, cheaply. I have very skilled doctor. She explained to me my blood test results. Her time is precious, so I did not ask to clarify on some points. I asked Ai after....it told me the same as she did, plus it explained in detail everything of interest.

Will people devolve in intelligence? Hmm...not likely.
Ai can enhance you. Unless access to Ai is just for a few, everyone will be enhanced. Moore's law and business interests suggest everyone will have Ai on their phone/brain implant.
To survive I do not need to learn new stuff, but I still do. And many others too. I had very profound discussion about physics and history with a very senior plumber, just last week. He flunked high school. But he was intelligent and inquisitive, so in older age he started to read a lot, because it interests him.

Unless the 0.001% has army of robots protecting them against peasant revolt on their intergalactic yacht.....they are unlikely to hold their position. And they will degenerate pretty quick without competition and probably suicide or kill each other out of power struggle paranoia, anyway.

There is one worry. That Super Intelligence, i.e. much smarter than us, will not be benevolent. In that case we are screwed anyway, if we get there faster with artificial or slower naturally. Super Intelligent human is even more dangerous because he eats and f..ks the same stuff.
But it seems to me with intelligence benevolence rises.

Intelligence will always have value, because it is linked with survival. It is possible we devolve in to idiots and die with our Sun, tho. But that will probably be the result of midwits and cowards keeping control i.e. universal suffrage democracy, resulting in very bad decisions.
 
You cant enache what you don't train... sure evolution will find a way to enache something... but not intelligence.

I have little empiric evidence: I normally know where my phone is.... but when I start to use where is my phone, suddenly I start to forgot where it is, so I need to get back on track my normal self.

Try it yourself, trust on something to a computer and you will get bad at it. It is a muscle, muscles are used or not.
 
tyoc213 said:
You cant enache what you don't train... sure evolution will find a way to enache something... but not intelligence.

I have little empiric evidence: I normally know where my phone is.... but when I start to use where is my phone, suddenly I start to forgot where it is, so I need to get back on track my normal self.

Try it yourself, trust on something to a computer and you will get bad at it. It is a muscle, muscles are used or not.
Click to expand...
Evolution did enhance intelligence, because it was crucial for survival.
Just not at large all of a sudden - the stupid ones simply got eaten.

Muscle training is true. You don't use it you lose it.
But we now once again, thanks to prosperity, have time to resurrect archery skills - very important survival skill, for example.
People do a lot of fitness training these days - not very common just few generations ago.
Video games are very intricate puzzles. Even very popular GTA forces you to train your brain on issues not very common among general population - managing finances, criminal empire and number puzzles. Very simple one but miles ahead what normal modern person has to solve.

People like to challenge themselves in their spare time. Just look at us. Yeah, some don't. And they will shrivel and die out. That is evolution.

When I quiz Ai about something, I still want to know why the proposed solution is the right one. My walking man page syntax muscle will shrivel and die, true. But the freed neurons can be allocated to the why or on less arbitrary and more important stuff.
 
That's not the first report like that.
We already see it in all schools (My wife is a teacher.)
Not even any kind of homework makes no sense no more whatsover - what shall a teacher read and correct what his students neither read nor wrote themselves, not even read the corrections or comments, not even care about? A complete pointless waste of time. As a teacher you also could also ony talk with ChatGPT directly instead - even a quieter situation in class - and hand out diplomas to anybody randomly passes by.
You can also forget any form of written test/exam, because there are two kinds of pupils/students today: Those who pass with excellent marks, and those you catch cheating. Take away their smartphones, and you have failure rates at 80% and more. Some schools already install WLAN/5G jammers. It will be all oral exams, only - back to the middle ages. Anybody with test anxiety has lost.
But it's even worse than that:
Pupils/students neither see nor understand, why not use chatbots on a test, why that's cheating, and why they should learn anything themselves at all.
And it still gets worse: They blindely trust everything a machine tells them. Parents or teachers are powerless, have no chance neither to tell nor explain, when the Chatbot told some BS. When ChatGPT says, Hitler was a peaceloving democrat who protected jews and homosexuals, then so it is. Anybody saying something else has no clue at all whatsoever, because the computer said so. End of story.

This is going to be a very "funny" future we're heading at.
I wouldn't be surprised if in a couple of years so called "primitive people" living in the rain forest will laugh at us, 'So, you named us "the underdeveloped ones"? Dude, you cannot tell a banana from a tomatoe!'

My only hope is, the economical crash will come before a critical mass became gaga - and there is not that much time left anymore...
 
Maturin said:
That's not the first report like that.
We already see it in all schools (My wife is a teacher.)
Not even any kind of homework makes no sense no more whatsover - what shall a teacher read and correct what his students neither read nor wrote themselves, not even read the corrections or comments, not even care about? A complete pointless waste of time. As a teacher you also could also ony talk with ChatGPT directly instead - even a quieter situation in class - and hand out diplomas to anybody randomly passes by.
You can also forget any form of written test/exam, because there are two kinds of pupils/students today: Those who pass with excellent marks, and those you catch cheating. Take away their smartphones, and you have failure rates at 80% and more. Some schools already install WLAN/5G jammers. It will be all oral exams, only - back to the middle ages. Anybody with test anxiety has lost.
But it's even worse than that:
Pupils/students neither see nor understand, why not use chatbots on a test, why that's cheating, and why they should learn anything themselves at all.
And it still gets worse: They blindely trust everything a machine tells them. Parents or teachers are powerless, have no chance neither to tell nor explain, when the Chatbot told some BS. When ChatGPT says, Hitler was a peaceloving democrat who protected jews and homosexuals, then so it is. Anybody saying something else has no clue at all whatsoever, because the computer said so. End of story.

This is going to be a very "funny" future we're heading at.
I wouldn't be surprised if in a couple of years so called "primitive people" living in the rain forest will laugh at us, 'So, you named us "the underdeveloped ones"? Dude, you cannot tell a banana from a tomatoe!'

My only hope is, the economical crash will come before a critical mass became gaga - and there is not that much time left anymore...
Click to expand...
The school system (Prussian style memorization of facts and rules and following instructions, so you don't hold up the factory line) was obsolete and broken 40 years ago.
It is a place where single mothers offload their kids. Too easy and derailing for the smart ones and too difficult for the stupid ones.
Unless the professor was testing you in person, we cheated. It is weapons race/prisoner's dilemma situation.
If you have performance anxiety, sorry, but you should learn to work on that skill, because you will be disadvantaged otherwise later.

Ai enhanced tutor system, tuned to your skill level, can be much better. Nature of the child and parents' guidance and example are more important, especially after the first 3 years, when the young brain easily learns to read, write and numbers. No system can teach someone who is not smart enough and/or his parents do not require results.

I told kids to concentrate on Math, because it is harder to learn later. To understand Physics, instead of formulas. And the why in history. Other than that, D and E is fine with me.
Sitting on azz with other children of the same age, they might not even like, listening to some boring lecture is not what builds character or knowledge, let alone wisdom.
 
The saddest thing about this is that the kids stop learning, and morover stop learning how to learn for themselves, which is the opposite of what the education is supposed to be trying to achieve. Imagine if you had someone standing next to you 24 hours a day, who is an expert on everything, and can tell you the answer to every question, without you ever having to make any effort, apart from asking him. Maybe some people (the lucky ones, anyway) will end up like HG Well's 'Eloi'. In that case, I don't know who the 'morlocks' are going to be...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_ZfZaRCWTI
 
blackbird9 said:
The saddest thing about this is that the kids stop learning, and stop learning how to learn for themselves, which is the opposite of what the education is supposed to be trying to achieve.
Click to expand...
They learn what they see as more relevant. And frankly they might be right. In feminized society, gossip skills via social media is more important than some hard skills.
When times change and funny money and pretend office "work" is no more, then they will envy the nerds. So far, it looks like the future is either robots doing the hard work while we gossip or joining warlord outfit to get the food on table.
At least they need to read and write on basic level to utilize the mobile phones.

Those who avoid the temptations of modernity easy life, will inherit the Earth....or Mars. Tough luck. Not much different from 200 years ago.
 
Somehow I don't feel very tempted by the prospect of Mars... I'll leave that to Elon, he seems to like it there :-)
1793290495141.png
 
Yes, to a certain extent the web was already a threat. It's much easier to type a question into a search engine than to have to go and search through a library, read books, etc. But at least there is still some thinking effort to be done on the part of the human. Whereas an AI is somewhat like that, but on steroids. And we are still only in the infancy of this technology.
 
blackbird9 said:
Yes, to a certain extent the web was already a threat. It's much easier to type a question into a search engine than to have to go and search through a library, read books, etc. But at least there is still some thinking effort to be done on the part of the human. Whereas an AI is like that but on steroids.
Click to expand...
It used to be the most important to be physically strong, then to be smart. What remains is to be healthy / beautiful. That is why Eloi are often depicted as attractive.

But with Space Colonization the need for smarts and some strength reapers.
GNReqFqWMAA9O7I.png
 
You better hope that it IS that guy who turns out to be the 'morlocks', and not some version of THIS guy. The period of time where humans of any type retain some vestige of control, may turn out to be rather short. The lotus-eating Eloi might not be around to enjoy it for very long. Perhaps the machines will keep some around as pets. Or slaves.
1793295113573.png

That is a BFG...
 
It's a good job you didn't grow up in Shanghai then... homework weekday evenings. Cramming school all day saturday. Same again sunday morning... then another week starts monday. Kids have a fun time over there. The nail that stands up will be hammered down, as they say.
www.bbc.com

China seeks to lift homework pressures on schoolchildren

A new law urges parents to allow children time for rest and exercise, and restrict time spent online.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 
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