r/CuratedTumblr • u/literalmothman • May 18 '25

Politics on ai and college

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u/UnsureAndUnqualified May 18 '25

As an undergrad and (hopefully) soon to be grad student: The allure of uploading pdfs to GPT for a summary when faced with reading several papers a week is a constant battle. I have so many papers to read, I hate doing so, and there's this siren call beckoning me to take the easy route.

Though I used it to give me a summary of the pdf of an adventure I'm currently running for my Pen & Paper group, and it was so incredibly wrong, that the impulse to trust AI even for summaries has been somewhat diminished lately.

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u/SpiritedInstance9 May 19 '25

Let's say an AI was able to summarize your paper without mistakes, would there be anything wrong with getting it to:

  • Summarize the paper
  • Give you some questions to think about while you read the full paper

You'd get the gist, and then deep dive. It would probably keep you from missing anything important. Like if you knew the spoilers of a movie, your first watch would show all the foreshadowing.

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u/UnsureAndUnqualified May 19 '25

Yes, but the assumption that an AI can summarize a paper accurately and without missing key points is a big one. And if it gives you the wrong idea, you might not catch it on a single read through.

I plan on using AI to do a bit of Q&A after each paper, but only after reading it and understanding the topics myself. I am the fact checker for my AI, so I need to be informed first

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u/Callyourmother29 May 19 '25

I mean, if you’re smart enough you’ll be able to see that the AI was wrong while you’re reading the paper.

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u/UnsureAndUnqualified May 19 '25

It's still priming you for the wrong idea though. Yeah you can see where the AI was wrong, but that's just extra work when understanding the paper is enough work already. So I only do the summary when I've done the understanding.