Why do I still feel like I'll be paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for my children's education when all they're going to do is all learn through AI anyway.
Interesting. I don’t use GPT for code but I have been using it to grade answers to behavioral and system design interview questions, lately. Sometimes it hallucinates, but the gists are usually correct.
I would not use it if it was for something with a strictly correct answer.
I'm not sure about the audience for this, if you're already willing to learn the material you probably already engage with AI in a way that isn't "please output the answers for me" because you're likely self-aware enough to know that "answering" isn't always "understanding." Maybe this mode makes that a little easier? but I doubt it's significant
If you're the other 90% of students that are only learning to check the boxes and get through the courses to get the qualification at the end... are you going to bother using this?
Of course, maybe this is "see, we're not trying to kill education... promise!"
I truly believe AI will change all of education for the better, but of course it can also hinder learning if used improperly. Those who want to genuinely learn will learn while those looking for shortcuts will cause more harm to themselves.
I just did a show HN today about something semi related.
I made A deep research assistant for families. Children can ask questions to explain difficult concepts and for parents to ask how to deal with any parenting situation. For example a 4 year old may ask “why does the plate break when it falls?”
I'll personally attest: LLM's have been absolutely incredible to self learn new things post graduation. It used to be that if you got stuck on a concept, you're basically screwed. Unless it was common enough to show up in a well formed question on stack exchange, it was pretty much impossible, and the only thing you can really do is keep paving forward and hope at some point, it'll make sense to you.
Now, everyone basically has a personal TA, ready to go at all hours of the day.
I get the commentary that it makes learning too easy or shallow, but I doubt anyone would think that college students would learn better if we got rid of TA's.
I have been very skeptical of AI. But getting unstuck when studying. Its a huge help. This is the first I see the benifit with AI. I take a picture of a formula and ask chatgpt to explain the steps.
I’m curious what these features like study mode actually are. Are they not just using prompts behind this (of which I’ve used many already to make LLMs behave like this) ?
Indeed, that's what khanmigo is using, and they were involved in testing chatgpt before it was released for that purpose, to test/try/improve chatgpt as a tutor (that performs fact checking and doesn't hallucinate).
I honestly don't know how they convince employees to make features like this - like, they must dogfood and see how wrong the models can be sometimes. Yet there's a conscious choice to not only release this to, but actively target, vast swathes of people that literally don't know better.
An acquaintance of mine has a start-up in this space and uses OpenAI to do essentially the same thing. This must look like, and may well be, the guillotine for him...
It's my primary fear building anything on these models, they can just come eat your lunch once it looks yummy enough. Tread carefully
This is actually a public validation for your friend's startup.
A proper learning tool will have history of conversation with the student, understand their knowledge level, have handcrafted curricula (to match whatever the student is supposed to learn), and be less susceptible to hallucination.
OpenAI have a bunch of other things to worry about and won't just pivot to this space.
All bigco today, not only foundational model providers but also in media and other vertical, tend to be a platform for end user. They don’t want middle man.
If you are trying to be a middle man, you should be prepared.
The point is that you can have a highly advanced teacher with infinite patience, available 24/7—even when you have a question at 3 a.m is game changer and people that know how to use that will have a extremaly leverage in their life.
This is great. When it first came out I was going through Strang’s linalg course and got it to do “problem mode” where it would talk me through a problem step by step, waiting for me respond.
A more thought through product version of that is only a good thing imo.
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[ 1.8 ms ] story [ 92.8 ms ] threadHappy Tuesday!
Does it offer meaningful benefits to students over self directed study?
Does it out perform students who are "learning how to learn"?
What affect does allowing students to make mistakes have compared to being guided through what to review?
I would hope Study Mode would produce flash card prompts and quantize information for usage in spaced repetition tools like Mochi [1] or Anki.
See Andy's talk here [2]
[1] https://mochi.cards
[2] https://andymatuschak.org/hmwl/
I would not use it if it was for something with a strictly correct answer.
If you're the other 90% of students that are only learning to check the boxes and get through the courses to get the qualification at the end... are you going to bother using this?
Of course, maybe this is "see, we're not trying to kill education... promise!"
There is no way to learn without effort. I understand they are not claiming this, but many students want a silver bullet. There isn't one.
I made A deep research assistant for families. Children can ask questions to explain difficult concepts and for parents to ask how to deal with any parenting situation. For example a 4 year old may ask “why does the plate break when it falls?”
example output: https://www.studyturtle.com/ask/PJ24GoWQ-pizza-sibling-fight...
app: https://www.studyturtle.com/ask/
Show HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44723280
Now, everyone basically has a personal TA, ready to go at all hours of the day.
I get the commentary that it makes learning too easy or shallow, but I doubt anyone would think that college students would learn better if we got rid of TA's.
It's my primary fear building anything on these models, they can just come eat your lunch once it looks yummy enough. Tread carefully
A proper learning tool will have history of conversation with the student, understand their knowledge level, have handcrafted curricula (to match whatever the student is supposed to learn), and be less susceptible to hallucination.
OpenAI have a bunch of other things to worry about and won't just pivot to this space.
All bigco today, not only foundational model providers but also in media and other vertical, tend to be a platform for end user. They don’t want middle man.
If you are trying to be a middle man, you should be prepared.
A more thought through product version of that is only a good thing imo.