You could potentially make DNA a 'protected class' of data, implying insuarance companies cannot look at it in their decision making, same as something like race.
We do basically have this, kinda, with not being able to discriminate based on pre-existing conditions.
The law however is only as good as it is being enforced. And if recent events is anything to go by, not having this data is generally the strongest protection.
Why in the world is the ban self-imposed? People literally died because of this, others spent their lifetimes rotting in prison.
A software bug is perfectly fine, everthing has bugs. It was the years of gaslighting, lying and sending people to prison when you could've easily admitted the issue. Ridiculous.
The largest output of a PhD has always been the training to the student, not the thesis itself, hence why we're called 'students'. Anyone claiming that a thesis can be generated by AI is missing the point. AI can also do everything an undergrad can do, we don't claim that undergrad education has been blown to bits. At best, we say we need better modes of evaluation, and perhaps that's true for PhDs as well.
I submitted my thesis this month at a QS top 10 uni after nearly 4 years of work. LLMs were available for most of that time. I don't really feel that it has diminished the value of my thesis by much really.
>> we don't claim that undergrad education has been blown to bits
> But it has been.
Let me fix it: pen and paper. There you go, bada-bing bada-bum. In our uni the exam for Algorithms and Data Structures (one that most people struggle with) is done on paper in an exam room. You better know your binary search.
People, especially wealthy, have been coasting through education paying someone to write their papers since Great Pumpkin knows how long. Now you can do same thing cheaply with LLM’s. The solution is pretty simple, let them fail. Have them show what they can do live in front of examiners. Here’s a computer without network card, only Python and SQLite installed with the Python basic documentation, build me X and prove it works in Z, Y, and Q.
I am studying my second degree and although there’s million and one ways to cheat, I won’t, since A) I want to learn this shot B) I am not sure LLM’s will be available with these capacity and with theses prices in the future, at least I won’t count on it.
Live exam, perfectly fine. You can use an LLM as support while you study, no problem, as a glorified search engine. On steroids. From the future. Then you prove you understood it.
Writing an essay, or a thesis, with LLM assist, is difficult to avoid in this scenario, though. It would require your prof, TA or examination committee to read the thing fully and understand the topic deeply. For 101 courses, that's doable, but for a PhD, that's so much work, that it'll break the system immediately.
Montaigne originally used essay (from French essayer, to try, attempt) to test hos on knowledge and understanding, his own capability to create new knowledge. In plain English, you test yourself if you can use your brain. That’s why it is so powerful to write a blog post about a topic you have just learned. Obviously, if you just generate the thing with LLM, there’s no point.
Essay is a fairly recent invention and perhaps it was not very good for testing students un the first place, since it kinda was not meant for that originally? So maybe we should test knowledge and understanding in different ways? In STEM-subjects this is not very hard, since basically you either can do the thing or not (like my example of coding above), but I have no idea how one would do this in history or philosophy. Should we go back to having long walks in the garden of the academy, where the professor guide’s you towards knowledge like some 21st Century Socrates? That doesn’t seem doable at this level of university students.
And how would you test PhD -level knowledge? You have to build a nuclear reactor from scratch in front of live audience? Or perhaps the oral examination have to become a real exam, not just a pointless ritual? Anyway, I think my point on using essay as a testing structure still stands. Maybe the examination should be like BJJ belt exam, where you have to show what you actually can do in front of peers and your teachers. A lot more people are likely to fail, but so be it. Maybe having a PhD stop being a joke then.
You’re sort of saying that’s because your thesis had no value to begin with, because it’s mainly a teaching exercise. I’m not saying that it doesn’t have value by the way, I’m sure it was good, that’s just my read of your post.
It’s an interesting subject. Makes me want to vibe code a PhD generator just like in the tweet. Maybe I will.
They are saying that the value of most PhDs was in the learning the student got in the process, not in the PhD itself. Groundbreaking PhDs exist, but they are far, far, from the norm or expectation. Exceptional people doing exceptional work will always exist.
> your thesis had no value to begin with, because it’s mainly a teaching exercise
And that’s the problem in your understanding. Thinking that a teaching exercise has no value while OP was saying that IS the value. It’s missing the forest for the trees. The point of homework isn’t to solve the problems. I bet you the teacher assigning the homework already knows the answers. Just like the point of a marathon isn’t to travel 26 miles because you could just take a bus.
The value of the exercises you do in school (from sums to PhDs) is the learning you get from them. Good, because you need people to learn stuff, because the people that know stuff will be dead in a few years and you need to replace them.
Except, if machines can do the exercises up to the PhDs, you probably don't need those brains in the future, at least not as many as before. You might need only the brightest ones, and who knows for how long? The next ten years?
Yes, that at least is a valid argument. I do’t really agree with it though. Humans need meaning and purpose in life. Intellectual pursuit is that meaning or purpose for a lot of people. The Educational institutes might change drastically from how they have been in the last few centuries, but people will never seize learning. The act of learning is in itself incredible rewardig to many people.
> at least not as many as before. You might need only the brightest ones, and who knows for how long? The next ten years?
Then those with power will keep it and pass it on to their heirs, and some without will try to finesse it but the masses will be told “we don’t need you”. I think in a lot of ways, this is similar to how feudal societies were. Maybe humanity will pass through another phase of that. Maybe we already are. But I think it won’t last either.
Well no, it’s a problem in your understanding of what I’ve written. The thesis and what’s learned along the way are separate objects with separate value, and you’ve decided to misread me in order to have something to be indignant about. However, to expand on a point I didn’t originally raise: learning itself is likely also reduced with AI assistance. That’s a fairly natural consequence of having to do less work yourself, we don’t retain information we don’t need to retain.
I think they were saying the "largest" output was the training, which I agree with. But it's also the case that they nudge forwards thinking in various areas through the outputs of the research process, whether that's papers, talks or the thesis itself.
I wonder where the people who spend hours and hours making the perfect gaming setup isntead of gaming, or the audiophiles who spend their lives in an eternal quest to get the perfect equipemnt instead of listening to music, end up in this analogy.
Interesting. I generally hate proprietary software, but I've actually been really satisfied with the kindle UI. I don't use the store at all, simply email epubs to it directly. (I usually only move 1-5 books max at a given time, so this process feels really simple to me). The only adjustments I need are the text size and front light, battery life is amazing. I'm guessing this would be really useful if I had advanced needs, but for just reading epubs, kindle is a really good UI.
You must have a newer kindle. Koreader was basically my best bet once mine (2012 vintage) stopped being supported by Amazon. Native epub support plus other goodies. I’m sure you’re aware that emailing an epub to your kindle converts it to mobi before sending, potentially mucking up the formatting.
I think mine is from 2019. I didn't realise it wasn't natively displaying an epub. I haven't noticed any breaks, or maybe I attributed any errors simply to the original epub and didn't realise it was a conversion error. But also the things I read are quite plain and text heavy so perhaps that's why.
Your salaries if AI works (and takes your jobs), and your taxes if it doesn’t (bubble bursts, your taxes bail them out Becasue it’s too big to fail).
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