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206 sats \ 13 replies \ @Undisciplined 12 Aug \ on: Should universities embrace or crack down on student AI usage? AskSN
I think the incentives around college need to be overhauled such that it's actually about learning, rather than being about the appearance of learning. That means more things like group discussions and oral exams.
There are small liberal arts schools that do this pretty well, but it doesn't seem to scale well and it doesn't work with students who aren't interested in learning.
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I'm sure it'll be a bit of both. There's no way the industry is able to keep up with technology advances, which will make the training obsolete and of suspect quality. That'll crater the illusion that there are significant returns to college.
Still, there will be a lot of demand for education from both employers and students. So, something will get worked out.
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I think higher education has always been mid-tier in terms of technology catch up. We're slower than most tech companies, but we're faster than some of the legacy dinosaur companies, and of course faster than government agencies
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I agree with that, but it's going to be hard for professors and the bureaucracy to keep up, which will lead to students receiving obsolete training that's not desired by employers.
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Something that bugs me is whether colleges should educate kids to do useless work that is nevertheless compensated well by the market because of government distortions. The formerly well paid DEI consultants are an example. But also things like training kids to do political advocacy which is mostly about fighting over surplus rather than creating surplus.
As a well known econ professor likes to say, "do you create surplus or do you just move it around?"
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You could probably include a lot of the scammy shit MBAs come up with.
It’s a good question. My typical mode is that we should respond to the world we live in rather than the one we’d like to live in.
Yeah scalability is the main issue. I'm sure if I had 1:1 time with a student I can teach them a lot of stuff, even while letting them use AI. It's just that I can't replicate that across 50+ students
My wife and I are actually leaning more and more towards home schooling because of these issues.
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I've always been very pro-homeschool, but our daughter adamantly wants to go to school and we're going to let her.
After studying education economics, I'm pretty convinced that it doesn't make much difference either way, so we're going to let her try what she wants until it seems like a problem.
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It might not matter in the aggregate, but I do think some people may be better suited to home schooling than others. In the end, each parent has to assess what kind of environment would be best for their kids.
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That's exactly my feeling. If the local school is going well and that continues being what she wants to do, then we'll stick with it. If it's not working for us, then we'll try something else.
Generally speaking, this is the takeaway from Caplan's book about parenting efficacy.
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The fact that your daughter wants or chooses to go to school is big
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She keeps telling us she nervous but is also adamant that she wants to go.
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I like your previous idea of handwritten exams
Or maybe bust out multiple choice and number 2 pencils
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