Comment by jaybrendansmith
8 days ago
Everything we've learned in the last 10 years is telling us that computers do not help human education in the slightest. We remember better when we write with pen and paper. We learn better with whiteboards and paper books. The simple answer: Remove most computing from education entirely. Blue composition books, pencils, whiteboards is what trains humans. Calculators are helpful perhaps but it is quite possible that slide rules are better. We need humans that can critically think from first principles to counter the recycled information generated by AI.
> computers do not help human education in the slightest
I had no access to anyone who could teach me calculus as a kid except Khan Academy, so I think this is a gross exaggeration. But I agree in the end, that all my "real" learning did come from pen-and-paper practice, not watching videos.
The reality is that a human will learn, given any materials including LLMs, but only if they truly desire to learn. We've had MOOCs, gigantic libraries, all full of free information. You can obtain a PhD level understanding in any technical field of your choice today just by consistently going to the library and consistently applying yourself.
It's not unlike going to the gym, and we see how many people do that regularly. Except it's even funnier, because people serious about the gym but what? Tutors. They call them personal trainers. We've known for a millennium or more that 1-on-1 instruction is vastly better than anything else, but most people actually don't want to get into shape, and most people actually don't want to learn.
> The reality is that a human will learn, given any materials including LLMs, but only if they truly desire to learn. We've had MOOCs, gigantic libraries, all full of free information. You can obtain a PhD level understanding in any technical field of your choice today just by consistently going to the library and consistently applying yourself.
Not true. In every field there is guild knowledge that a person can't acquire from a library. In technical disciplines PhD-level knowledge requires experience in collaboration, research, and frequently lab work, which is impossible to acquire without access to a lab -- or just direct experience with research methods, whatever those may be. Reading papers and absorbing information aren't enough. PhD-level knowledge comes from the process of writing and doing original work.
> The reality is that a human will learn, given any materials including LLMs, but only if they truly desire to learn.
Also not true. We require kids to go to school partly because exposure to the environment and work inculcates skills regardless of whether kids want to do the work -- and regardless of whether they want to learn.
LLMs are damaging to students partly because they provide an escape hatch from that work and thereby prevent kids from acquiring skills.
Think of it this way: most people who want to be healthy and eat a healthy diet still find easy junk food tempting. What they want does not change the temptation, because the body and brain gravitate towards easy, cheap fulfillment of basic drives.
People facing challenging tasks, similarly, are tempted to take measures that reduce the amount of effort they require. The availability of tools that reduce the required effort also help shape a person's understanding of the value of the challenge and the work: "why should I do this hard task when I have a tool that can do it for me?" You and I know the answer to this question when we're discussing something like writing an essay or solving a problem in a math or programming class. Students frequently don't. They are by definition ignorant. Children, moreover, lack maturity. Their brains are less capable of resisting the easy path than an adult's. That's partly why parenting is important: parents provide boundaries and limits that kids need but won't and can't provide for themselves.
Sometimes people, especially kids, really do need to be dragged, kicking and screaming, through something in order to receive the benefits it offers. Being dragged through it sometimes convinces a person of its value and benefits. In a kid's case, there's a decent chance that the experience will improve executive function, shape expectations in a healthy way, inculcate grit, and become appreciation -- or at least habit.
I would not have written essays on my own as a student in secondary school. My English teachers had to provide that structure for me and impose the demand. But LLMs make it much more difficult to impose the demands, and kids are ill protected against the temptations of the cognitive equivalent of junk food, but an order of magnitude worse and more damaging.
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The annoying thing is a PhD level understanding does not get you jobs.
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Yeah I agree. I grew up in a very blue-collar town, and anything I wanted to learn (outside of public schooling) either came from emaciated websites or whatever books I could find at the library. Having YouTube and Khan Academy and everything else would have made such a huge difference for me.
Now I’m wondering how a website is emaciated
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> except Khan Academy
But that's not using "computers" as a computer but as a video player. When evaluating whether computers are "good for learning", I don't think we should include using a computer as a video player, a book, or even flash cards. It should be things a computers uniquely offer which a books, paper, videos and a physical reference library cannot.
Based on the results of deploying hundreds of millions of computer to schools in the 80s and 90s, the evidence was mostly that computers are good for learning computer programming and "how to use a computer" but not notably better than cheaper analog alternatives for learning other things.
Interestingly, a properly trained and scaffolded LLM could be the first thing to meaningfully change that. It could do some things in ways only human teachers could previously since it is theoretically capable of observing learner progress and adapting to it in real-time.
I think videos are a unique thing computers offer. Books I understand. You have them digital or not. But a video ? Without a computer, there is no video. You were present for the initial lecture or you weren't and that's it.
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Khan did not throw at you a 100-slide Powerpoint deck in 45'.
He really took the time to replicate the manual teaching process of writing on whiteboard. He improved upon it by using colors. But basically had the same pace as a teacher writing on a whiteboard.
When professors are given a projector, they just throw together some slides and add their narration.
This is not very efficient. To learn you need to suffer. Or you need to watch the suffering.
That's not really a computer helping you though, that's just a computer allowing a human that's far away to help you right?
I think what the author meant is that it does help not more than the same knowledge provided the old way.
Every child reads a book about solving problems, assumes they can now solve problems, and is disappointed when that is not true.
I think this overlooks the potency and scarcity of 1:1 time with the teacher. If you've only got maybe a few minutes of that in an average schoolday there's a huge difference between whether or not you've talked it through with an AI before trying the question out on the teacher.
They're wrong sometimes, but usually in verifiable ways. And they don't seem to know the difference between medicine and bioterrorism, so often they refuse. But these limitations are worth tolerating when the alternative is that our specialists in topic X are bogged down by questions about topic Y to the point where X isn't getting taught.
And now they'll have less time because they will be bombarded with slop to no end.
Obviously generating your homework is a bad idea, and maybe assigning homework that can be generated is a bad idea. But neither of those are relevant to the problem I'm talking about which is about due diligence prior to asking for somebody's extended attention.
Whether you're in class or at work, it's just courteous to ask an AI first.
Nah, I wrote physics programs on my computer at home in high school and it absolutely helped with my schooling. Yeah, maybe iPad apps aren't the best things in schools but you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Computers bad is simply not true.
I learned calculus thanks to wolfram alpha step by step solving feature
> humans that can critically think from first principles
This has never been achieved by, nor is it the point of, education for the masses.
But it should be, right?
I'm not going to disagree with step by step videos ... those are a HUGE help. I'm really talking about solving problems using pen and paper, whether math or writing, is how my problem-solving patterns actually changed.
I would start saying that many people need presence in a real environment with people to learn. We don't use all our senses in a remote environment.
I disagree with that statement. There is nothing inherently wrong with using computer to learn and if your personal goal is to learn it in lot of cases makes it much easier, whether to search for or visualise a piece of knowledge you're' learning.
The problem is frankly computer and now computer with LLM makes it easy to cheat.
The kid doesn't want to learn, the kid wants good grades so parent is happy with them, and the young adult wants to get the paper coz they were told that is required for good life. It's misalignment of incentives.
I don't think computers automatically make us more educated, but if you want to make a point don't use reductive exaggerations. > We need humans that can critically think from first principles to counter the recycled information generated by AI.
I agree with this.