Useful feedback - thanks. The content you're seeing may be misleading for what the platform really does. Let me explain.
The "hot topic" thing is just chatgpt creating conversation starters. Sometimes, its' leaning left, sometimes right, sometimes it's not political. We're tuning it up (mainly to just be more engaging).
The post you saw about Elon Musk ... Everyone is talking about whatever they feel like talking about. If Musk isn't your cup of tea, mute this anonymous person and you don't see each other for a week. It's only a week because maybe one of you was having a bad day. But with repeated muting, they're completely gone. Also nudges the system to group you with people you're going to like better. After enough respects and mutes, you should see the people you enjoy.
The bigger point is what happens once you bring your friends. You guys can talk about anything without getting angry at each other. If they irritate, mute 'em. If you enjoy the conversation, respect them. Enough mutual respect and you can see real names.
I work with students learning to code, some of whom use AI in various ways. I can definitely see AI becoming a valuable tool for them in the future, but most students are currently ill-equipped to take advantage of it.
The most common error I observe from students is not providing sufficient information to get useful results. They'll omit what language or libraries they're intending to use, or restrictions on the set of language features they are or are not familiar with. Because of this, they'll get confident, often correct, responses, which are entirely unhelpful for the work they're doing.
The other issue they'll run into is over- or underestimating the capabilities of tools like ChatGPT. The first time they run into a problem which it isn't immediately able to solve they often give up on using AI as a tool entirely.
I do think AI has value for learners, primarily in an "explainer" role. Allowing students to take a piece of code and ask "what does this do" to get a plain English explanation is extremely powerful. It also can act as a substitute for documentation, as new learners are often disinclined to parse through official documentation, which is rarely beginner-friendly.
The mechanisms in improving LLM code output do not correlate to better understanding of systems or even LLMs for that matter. For language I think you're more correct in your view for sure.
This reminds me of an attempt made by RGMechEx to retrieve game code for an Atari game where the code itself was used to generate a visual effect similar to TV static on the screen [1].
I think some people are talking past each other when referring to a "reddit replacement" by focusing on different aspects and even different eras of reddit.
Speaking for myself, I would love to see some of the features reddit popularized be brought to a replacement. However, I'm not at all interested in a one-to-one replacement of reddit in its current form, especially if we take "current form" to mean what a typical user would experience joining the site today.
I have the opportunity to introduce (or re-introduce) quadratics to students fairly regularly, and I'm eager to incorporate this understanding! I've often highlighted the symmetry of the quadratic formula, though usually we get there via completing the square, rather than this translation approach.
I desperately wish students got more practice with function transformations. It's a powerful tool that far too many students leave high school without understanding.
I've played around with this myself a fair bit, so I'll add two things:
* I'm not sure if I buy the "chain of thought" approach as being very significant here. I haven't recorded my results, but I've gotten ChatGPT to answer correctly a significant number of SAT questions with much more direct approaches (e.g. "The following is a multiple choice reading question, answer the question and explain why your answer is correct").
* This was likely significantly benefited by the new format of the reading/writing section of the SAT. Previously, a substantial number of questions relied on longer passages and connecting ideas between paragraphs. These questions are from the newest version of the test which is exclusively fill in the blank or short passage questions.
I was curious to try this myself. I asked it to encode provided sentences using rot13 and, while it rarely did so correctly, it did produce valid encoded words.
Asking it to encode "this is a test sentence" produced:
* guvf vf n grfg fvtangher ("this is a test signature")
* Guvf vf n grfg zrffntr. ("this is a test message.")
* Guvf vf n grfg fnl qrpbqr. ("This is a test say decode.")
I wonder if that's a by-product of some of those words existing on the internet and being part of its training set or somehow close enough in context to show up in its pattern-matching logic, rather than any real "understanding"
I work in CS education, and I've often wondered what this means for how we're preparing students. I don't teach frameworks or cloud services (and would be woefully under-qualified to do so), I teach the topics that have long been thought of as "foundational" for moving forward in computer science. The logic I've always clung to is that if students have a strong understanding of how to build things from scratch, they can apply that as they move towards more modern development tools. More and more I'm questioning the accuracy of that belief.
Perhaps we simply need to more clearly separate the goals of studying computer science from studying programming/development. For the time being, however, I'm left feeling like I may be doing students a disservice avoiding the reality of what "modern-day programming" has evolved into.
In my experience, though, the set of {software development jobs that can be performed exclusively with the notions acquired in CS} is pretty much the same as the set of {boring software development}.
That's why R&D departments are full of people who learned a trade and later taught programming and software development themselves, and the bits with no business value are outsourced to consulting companies.
> They can afford to hold this position, because they already live in safe, often gated communities. And they can afford to hire private security.
I think this represents a fundamental difference in how people perceive "safety" and where it comes from. The author seems to suggest that wealthy individuals feel safe because they have access to additional security measures such as gates or private guards. I've seen this quite commonly in some parts of the world, but my experience in the US is quite the opposite: wealthy communities are so segregated from poverty and, subsequently, crime, that they don't feel the need to put up defenses.
Yeah, personally I'd say that seeing private security often makes me feel significantly less safe. Not because I'm afraid of being targeted by them, but because their presence suggests that there's some need for them. The actually safe places have decorative gates, not gates intended to keep anyone out.
As one of those private tutors that the ultra-rich hire, I can definitely support most of what you've said here.
The greatest service that private tutoring provides is structure, accountability, and guidance. A dedicated student working independently through quality practice materials (many of which are cheap or free) can absolutely attain most if not all of the beneficial outcomes of preparing with a tutor/service.
I think when people look at inequity in college admissions, standardized testing ends up being an easy, tangible target, but not a particularly important one. If you want to look at how wealth impacts standardized test scores, focusing on paid preparation programs is missing the larger picture.
Wealthy students have had literate parents who can afford books and have the time to read to them when they're toddlers. They've gone to safe schools where the teachers can focus on teaching rather than making sure the students are well fed. They are surrounded by adults who have gone to college and can serve as role models for positive academic behavior. They have friends who are all taking the same tests and applying to the same schools to provide emotional and thoughtful support.
The collegeboard markets the SAT as measuring preparedness for secondary education. These students have been preparing for college their entire lives; is it any wonder that they score higher?
Thank you. You absolutely validate my own observations.
I went to college. My parents did, as did my extended family on one side. I saw both sides and chose this one.
I picked a town where my children would be surrounded by an environment where cool was defined as “good at school”. I didn’t want external influences contradicting my influence.
My child is dedicated, but I taught that dedication.
A parent doesn’t have to be rich to understand the importance of a good education. My mother came from a dirt poor background.
People never say it’s an advantage to have parents that care about education. They always put the blame somewhere else. The parents worked too hard, whatever. For different traits, some parents are just better than others. Academics is just one trait. Is the most important? No, but it’s one that’s easy to measure.
> Do people post online because they care about the cause, or just want to look woke? Respond -Hot topic
and
> The guy might be on the spectrum, but he has a good sense of humor. [Link to Elon Musk post about Nazi salute]
I suppose it's possible I just got unlucky, but this doesn't seem to be avoiding the standard pitfalls of social media.
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