You seem really not to understand a lot about academia: there is a world of academia outside the Ivies, and outside economics or STEM. Departments and colleges where the annual budgets allocated to faculty are shrinking daily, and there is no money to pay for graduate students to conduct research. - ThreadSky

disabilitystor1.bsky.social • 107 days ago

You seem really not to understand a lot about academia: there is a world of academia outside the Ivies, and outside economics or STEM. Departments and colleges where the annual budgets allocated to faculty are shrinking daily, and there is no money to pay for graduate students to conduct research.

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manigarm.bsky.social•107 days ago

I have to echo Aparna here. I was a first-gen, low income undergrad and graduate student. My department had NO money to pay grad students for research. Plus, PhD candidates had teaching requirements to fulfill (thus, TA). I worked as a program coordinator to make ends meet.

bradchattergoon.bsky.social•107 days ago

That's a tough reality to be in but if it was already happening before the introduction of these technologies I don't think lobbying against these technologies will stop that trend from continuing.

recombobulating.bsky.social•107 days ago

It's disturbing how quickly the promise of a better future becomes telling people that unjust systems can never be fought and they should get used to it.

bradchattergoon.bsky.social•107 days ago

I think fighting against a tsunami isn't a good use of effort because tsunamis won't stop advancing. I think trying to guide that tsunami so it does minimum damage is a better strategy. For example the writers/actors strike a while back wanted safeguards against use of actors' likeness. 1/

recombobulating.bsky.social•107 days ago

Arguments that insist that hierarchies of oppression are immutable and cannot be fought have been around for centuries.

They don't get more believable when they put on new clothes.

bradchattergoon.bsky.social•107 days ago

They didn't outright try to stop use of the technology. I think this is a good strategy because it allows for use of the tech while minimizing the possible harms. This is just my opinion of course. Anyone is free to response how they would like to. 2/2

stairwaytokevin.bsky.social•107 days ago

No, it will actively accelerate those trends and come at the cost of changes that really can reverse it. You're advocating for a cheapening and hollowing out of higher education and we can just not do that!

bradchattergoon.bsky.social•107 days ago

Are there changes you can suggest that would reverse it? I haven't seen anyone propose changes that could reverse it yet.

stairwaytokevin.bsky.social•107 days ago

I have not found an AI model that gets facts about my study subject correct. They can't count letters in words, get tripped up by both logic puzzles and straightforward questions in the form of logic puzzles, etc. Each new model solves some old issues but has new ones that are discovered over time.

stairwaytokevin.bsky.social•107 days ago

Frankly, it's the opposite. Faculty, students, and other staff should push for shared governance so they have a role in university development, we should push class sizes back down which will require expanding not reducing TAs, students should get genuine interaction not chat bots

bradchattergoon.bsky.social•107 days ago

This sounds like it will make college tuition more expensive than it is right now, perhaps accelerating the rate of cost increase. In this case college will be less accessible to people and therefore less people will enroll. Does that affect your suggestion?

stairwaytokevin.bsky.social•107 days ago

That's not an inherent trade off. There are many ways universities can restructure their budgets. They can stop acting like hedge funds too while they're at it. That's why shared governance is important. It can counter admin's austerity

maaikeverbruggen.bsky.social•107 days ago

So we should just give up, roll over, and worsen the situation even more for PhD researchers?

disabilitystor1.bsky.social•107 days ago

My point is that the academy you are talking about isn't the reality. As for lobbying against AI, forgive me for not wanting to just give in and let AI decimate TA and faculty jobs without comment or critique.

bradchattergoon.bsky.social•107 days ago

You are forgiven 🙂😛

disabilitystor1.bsky.social•107 days ago

Charming.

stairwaytokevin.bsky.social•107 days ago

Even in bio you'd be hard-pressed to run an entire lab on RAs alone. "Just pay them" is a bigger fantasy than genAI actually working well

bradchattergoon.bsky.social•107 days ago

You might be interested to check out this paper.

https://aidantr.github.io/files/AI_innovation.pdf

stairwaytokevin.bsky.social•107 days ago

That's seems like a really bad outcome! I also don't measure quality or output in terms of patents filed

bradchattergoon.bsky.social•107 days ago

Sure, it's not necessary to measure quality or output in terms of patents filed. Does the 44% increase in materials discovered or 17% increase in downstream product innovation also not qualify as an improvement in quality or output? It qualifies for me.

stairwaytokevin.bsky.social•107 days ago

Not for me. Academia isn't a firm, that's not what it's about. Offloading idea generation and creativity is anathema to the institution and higher education in general.

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