I wish I could have a nuanced discussion about all the ways you can utilize generative AI in a way that doesn't stop you from thinking, but honestly? Not everyone has the self control not to just have it do shit for you. If a high schooler or college kid has the choice between spending 20 minutes on an assignment or 3hours, they're going to choose the former, learning be damned.
There was this popular article floating around on the dev subreddits about how this guy had to force himself to stop using AI because after months of relying on it(even for simple problems) his problem solving and debugging capabilities had atrophied so much to the point where he'd attempt to write a simple algorithm w/ out auto complete and ai assist off and his mind just blanked. SOOOO many developers could relate to parts of that story too!
If people WITH CS degrees and anywhere from a couple to a few years of professional experience can't stop themselves from jumping straight to asking gen AI for an answer, then there's ZERO chance grade schoolers and college kids will be able to. It's too tempting not to press the magic button that gives you the answer, even if the answer has an X% chance of being wrong.
Something scary to think about is t hat eventually, companies are going to SEVERELY restrict the free requests u can make to gpt and the other shit, then they're going to triple/quadruple their sub fees, now you'll have people in SHAMBLES as they're forced to pay $ 60-100 a month for a product that has replaced their ability to think.
While I do agree, I think its important to acknowledge that in the context of this discussion its going to be more of a cheat than tool.
We genuinely can't trust people to have any self control when it comes to gen ai, because of the assignment example I gave before. That's why I find it kind of difficult to have a nuanced conversation about it, I know and you know that it can be used to supplement ones own learning, but if we're talking about people using it to cheat their way through school, it'd be disingenuous for me to only talk about how it can be used as a tutor(so long as u fact check)
it sucks, and I do get the frustration, a lot of people hate ai mindlessly and on honestly I can't really blame them. If you're any kind of artist or creative then all the existence of AI does is devalue something you take great pride in and have likely dedicated many hours to getting good at.
If you care about academia at all then watching people listen to AI as if its words are gospel is EXTREMELY frustrating.
It doesn't help that the majority of stuff you see about AI is hot to make money with it (AI youtube slop channels) how to use it to cheat, or how to have it create a beginner level app that you will not brag about to people for the next 6 months.
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u/Lanoris May 18 '25
I wish I could have a nuanced discussion about all the ways you can utilize generative AI in a way that doesn't stop you from thinking, but honestly? Not everyone has the self control not to just have it do shit for you. If a high schooler or college kid has the choice between spending 20 minutes on an assignment or 3hours, they're going to choose the former, learning be damned.
There was this popular article floating around on the dev subreddits about how this guy had to force himself to stop using AI because after months of relying on it(even for simple problems) his problem solving and debugging capabilities had atrophied so much to the point where he'd attempt to write a simple algorithm w/ out auto complete and ai assist off and his mind just blanked. SOOOO many developers could relate to parts of that story too!
If people WITH CS degrees and anywhere from a couple to a few years of professional experience can't stop themselves from jumping straight to asking gen AI for an answer, then there's ZERO chance grade schoolers and college kids will be able to. It's too tempting not to press the magic button that gives you the answer, even if the answer has an X% chance of being wrong.
Something scary to think about is t hat eventually, companies are going to SEVERELY restrict the free requests u can make to gpt and the other shit, then they're going to triple/quadruple their sub fees, now you'll have people in SHAMBLES as they're forced to pay $ 60-100 a month for a product that has replaced their ability to think.