i firmly believe one of the main messages we should be telling our students about this whole thing is that generative ‘AI’ by definition will *never* have an original idea, and if you use it, neither will *you* - ThreadSky

willpooley.bsky.social • 1 day ago

i firmly believe one of the main messages we should be telling our students about this whole thing is that generative ‘AI’ by definition will *never* have an original idea,
and if you use it, neither will *you*

Comments

willpooley.bsky.social•1 day ago

immediately preceded/followed by: these models are built on theft and exploitation, and they are an environmental catastrophe.

willpooley.bsky.social•1 day ago

guys im not feeling optimistic about the direction this is going. the HEPI report is full on ‘this is inevitable, get with the program’. i want to disagree but

https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/02/26/student-generative-ai-survey-2025/

willpooley.bsky.social•1 day ago

92% of students already using AI at some stage in their studies! but many places (naming no names) providing no teaching about how (if!) to do this ethically and ‘rigorously’ to use the problem word. non zero chance half of the hums jobs in 2 years time are basically AI literacy?

jeanneologist.bsky.social•1 day ago

Among everything else one could say, I've never understood the logic behind "it's inevitable, we should join in". "Inevitable" doesn't necessarily mean "a good idea" or "not worth resisting"—or even "inevitable", given that if enough people would do the latter it can actually be avoided!

goingmedieval.bsky.social•23 hours ago

Also it simply *isn't* inevitable. It's being devalued right now and a lot of people just don't pay attention and are willing to buy unedited press releases from the firms themselves.

willpooley.bsky.social•23 hours ago

my struggle is: what do we do as teachers when we *know* 90% of students are using this to study? dealing with the problems this throws up has quickly become a large part of the everyday job for those of us who actually care if students are submitting generated text or short circuiting learning

aylwin.bsky.social•23 hours ago

We've got lecturers (not all thankfully) & technicians running around the A&D department telling students if they don't use it they'll get left behind, its unfathomable how many brains it's cooking; I didn't think there were new stages of alienated I could reach so thats egg on my face I guess.

jeanneologist.bsky.social•1 day ago

(And yes, this is a point that can be made about a *lot* of things right now...)

brendanl2011.bsky.social•21 hours ago

Part of this may be the use of AI to summarise book chapters, handouts, papers etc.
This is offered by the likes of Adobe Acrobat.
As I review confidential documents, I have not used it, as this would expose the contents to the model builder.
But I can understand the temptation for students.

jessicaslilies.bsky.social•3 hours ago

I was forced to use it in some of my projects. One of my professors was obsessed with it and made us do an entire project using ChatGPT. I didn’t learn much in that class.

az-charlene.bsky.social•20 hours ago

The high school where I work is telling teachers to us AI for EVERYTHING. in my opinion, teachers who use AI do their work for them should a) not be upset when the work comes in all AI generated from students and b) not be upset when their job is replaced by AI. I'm in AZ with Tom Horne 😑😑😑

carsmilesteve.bsky.social•18 hours ago

My 16 year old nephew was very cutting about his geography teacher giving him "an AI-produced worksheet", so (some of) the kids can see it's all crap as well...

everydayintention.bsky.social•20 hours ago

I respectfully disagree. The message should be it is a tool, learn to use it to become smarter, more prepared, more agile. You are not wrong in the sense that the lazy and unprepared will not have an original idea. AI is solving problems we never could alone. Be mindful of this reality.

martinoh.bsky.social•16 hours ago

Surely the point to make is that if they can't add value to a task beyond what AI can bring to it, their expensive student loan isn't going to gift them future employment?

Plus, if AI isn't good at writing assignment answers anyway, aren't those relying on it bound to fail their course?

alicebennett.bsky.social•22 hours ago

the most depressing conversations I've had with students about AI have been along the lines of "I have been told to use it as a sounding board to help me reflect on my ideas" — why is anyone suggesting that young people, who report staggering levels of loneliness and isolation, do this to themselves

alicebennett.bsky.social•22 hours ago

talk to a friend, ring your nan, literally just role-play replying to yourself if you need too: any of these are better than chatting to the machine that blandly yes ands you into oblivion

adsquires.bsky.social•20 hours ago

Personally, I tell students that using GenAI is like asking another person (which it really is, in terms of the experience of using it). The other person may be wrong. And if you *just* get the other person to write the essay for you then you won't learn anything and also that's malpractice.

libripotens.bsky.social•20 hours ago

Asking another person while they pour a couple of litres of water down the sink every time they speak to you

adsquires.bsky.social•19 hours ago

Yes but that's a different argument! (If I asked another person to pick their brains when I took them out for coffee as a thank you, that's worse! Especially if it's a latte!!) If the environmental cost was less than eg finding the answer in the library and photocopying it, would your advice switch?

adsquires.bsky.social•19 hours ago

(Also: environmental cost looks like it will go down, given DeepSeek...)

libripotens.bsky.social•19 hours ago

so it seems - though that begs the question of Jevon's paradox. How often do you take someone out for a latte to pick their brains vs. students slinging a question into ChatGPT?

libripotens.bsky.social•19 hours ago

I mean, I would still tell them they had to do the legwork themselves in that case.

adsquires.bsky.social•14 hours ago

The "asking another person" I had in mind would be eg their flatmate or fellow student. But still - if a student came up to you and said "Professor Pickford, could you explain what the philosophy of deconstruction says?" would you really say "go look it up"? even if they added "I'm a huge fan"...

planecrazy.bsky.social•20 hours ago

the best summation I've seen.

planecrazy.bsky.social•20 hours ago

Forgot the citation. https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/15-times-to-use-ai-and-5-not-to

christopher-hervez.bsky.social•22 hours ago

What every student needs to know is that transformers (the T in ChatGPT) are innately bullshit machines. Their generative properties were effectively unintended. In their development there was the now famous 5 Wikipedia articles task.

christopher-hervez.bsky.social•22 hours ago

The AI was asked to write 5 articles about "The Transformer". All were generated and total fiction. A recent example is the law firm whose references to case law were generated fiction.

christopher-hervez.bsky.social•22 hours ago

Any student specifying a paper using AI would need to be able to validate the paper. In order to validate the paper you would need to have the capacity to write the paper. So.. it makes sense to write the paper in the first place.

unsocialtheory.bsky.social•19 hours ago

absolutely this

borisnorris.bsky.social•23 hours ago

Unless AI develops consciousness and self awareness it can never replace a biological person.

vonmuf.bsky.social•20 hours ago

Agreed, but 80+% of the population don't need any form of creativity or original thinking for their work.

Those are the ones whose livelihoods are most exposed to the advances in GenAI.

valentinasmythe.bsky.social•23 hours ago

I don't want teachers to use it for grading either

bennokrojer.bsky.social•19 hours ago

By which definition?

niamhroisin.bsky.social•23 hours ago

Yes!

jowilliams.bsky.social•23 hours ago

Except that's just not true. Gen AI CAN generate unique material. The currently popular versions are tuned to try and avoid gibberish and abuse, and so tend towards the boring. They've developed fast lately but early examples help understand, eg from 2018: https://www.aiweirdness.com/generated-ice-cream-flavors-now-its-18-05-17/

foxinsoxuk.bsky.social•10 hours ago

I am already sick of companies feeding me AI summaries of reviews boiled down to the most banal and useless.

And that AI being pushed on the latest phones really annoys me too. I don't want it.

az-charlene.bsky.social•20 hours ago

Adding this line to my academic dishonesty policy for Fall! Perfect¡!!

skelliefranky.bsky.social•20 hours ago

they have been taught to not understand why a lack of creativity is a problem

berkeleyeve.bsky.social•18 hours ago

true in many educational systems around the world... including our own, to an unacknowledged degree

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply