I guess the whole discussion (in 1963, in 2025), is about 'knowledge acquisition' (or lack thereof). He mentions the Brazilian students memorising 'stuff' without understanding - as a former Brazilian educator, I can tell you that when I was working there in 2010-2020, it hadn't changed, and, to my point, got worse in late years. I think a lot of students care about 'getting a diploma' without actually learning something, but my main concern is about fairness: how could I praise good students from 'devious' students altogether?
> why does literally any discussion must have a mention of AI/LLMs?
Your sentiment is right but in this case not applicable.
A Teacher who did not really understand what he was teaching can easily have LLMs generate lectures/notes/etc. and pass it along to students without any thought put into it. A Student on his part can simply have LLMs generate answers for all of his problem sets and pass it along to the teacher.
The above would be a disaster for the overall spread of Science in the Society.
I have very limited experience with LLMs, and no recent experience teaching. But every time I hear about the problem of students using LLMs, I have two thoughts:
1) When they get out of school, no one can stop them from using LLMs. So preventing them from using them now is not a way to teach them how to cope in the future.
2) LLMs are (duh!) often wrong. So treat what the LLMs say as hypotheses, and teach the students how to test those hypotheses. Or if the LLMs are being used to write essays, have the students edit the output for clarity, form, etc. Exams might be given orally, or at least in a situation where the students don't have access to an LLM.
xandrius|2 months ago
Is it possible not to bring them up and still have a deep conversation?
fl4tul4|2 months ago
rramadass|2 months ago
Your sentiment is right but in this case not applicable.
A Teacher who did not really understand what he was teaching can easily have LLMs generate lectures/notes/etc. and pass it along to students without any thought put into it. A Student on his part can simply have LLMs generate answers for all of his problem sets and pass it along to the teacher.
The above would be a disaster for the overall spread of Science in the Society.
mcswell|2 months ago
1) When they get out of school, no one can stop them from using LLMs. So preventing them from using them now is not a way to teach them how to cope in the future.
2) LLMs are (duh!) often wrong. So treat what the LLMs say as hypotheses, and teach the students how to test those hypotheses. Or if the LLMs are being used to write essays, have the students edit the output for clarity, form, etc. Exams might be given orally, or at least in a situation where the students don't have access to an LLM.