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The Death of the Student Essay—and the Future of Cognition

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  • Argues for the importance of student essays, and then:

    When artificial intelligence is used to diagnose cancer or automate soul-crushing tasks that require vapid toiling, it makes us more human and should be celebrated.

    I remember student essays as being soul-crushing vapid toiling, personally.

    The author is very fixated on the notion that these essays are vital parts of human education. Is he aware that for much of human history - and even today, in many regions of the world - essay-writing like this wasn't so important? I think one neat element of AI's rise will be the growth of some other methods of teaching that have fallen by the wayside. Socratic dialogue, debate, personal one-on-one tutoring.

    I've been teaching myself some new APIs and programming techniques recently, for example, and I'm finding it way easier having an AI to talk me through it than it is grinding my way through documentation directly.

    It IS easier than reading the documentation, just like using a GPS is easier than reading a map.

    In both cases, the harder task helps you build a mental model much better than the easier task.

    For the GPS it doesn't really matter much, since the stakes are low--it's not important to build a mental model of a city if you can always use GPS.

    With programming I'm more cautious -- not knowing what you're doing can lead to serious harms. Just look at the Therac.

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    I loved writing essays and see the value for a student in knowing how to state a case and back it up with evidence, what counts as evidence, and the importance of clearly communicating the ideas.

    That said, I also use AI to write copy daily and the most important thing for anyone's cognition is critical thinking and reading comprehension, both of which AI is going to teach us whether we want it or not. Critical analysis is the only way we can navigate the future.

    Maybe this is another Great Filter for technologically advancing critters?

  • There are kids who find exercise soul-crushing vapid toiling too.

    Just for some perspective on “what’s good for you.” I personally think I’d have been more successful in life if I was better at essay writing. But I’m not sure if it’s a practice thing, or an innate ability thing. I have to assume I just need(ed) lots more practice and guidance.

    I’m also on a similar path right now learning more about programming. AI is helping me understand larger structures, and reinforcing my understanding and use of coding terminology. Even if I’m not writing code, I need to be able to talk about it a bit better to interact with the AI optimally.

    But this need to speak in a more optimum way may go away as AI gets better. That’s the thing I worry about, the AI crossing a threshold where you can kind of just grunt at it and get what you want. But maybe Idiocracy is on my mind there.

    … just some random thoughts.

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    I'm still looking for a good reason to believe critical thinking and intelligence are taking a dive. It's so very easy to claim the kids aren't all right. But I wish someone would check. An interview with the gpt cheaters? A survey checking that those brilliant essays aren't from people using better prompts? Let's hear from the kids! Everyone knows nobody asked us when we were being turned into ungrammatical zombies by spell check/grammar check/texting/video content/ipads/the calculator.

  • I loved writing essays and see the value for a student in knowing how to state a case and back it up with evidence, what counts as evidence, and the importance of clearly communicating the ideas.

    That said, I also use AI to write copy daily and the most important thing for anyone's cognition is critical thinking and reading comprehension, both of which AI is going to teach us whether we want it or not. Critical analysis is the only way we can navigate the future.

    Maybe this is another Great Filter for technologically advancing critters?

    I hated writing pointless essays about topics I don't care about, and yet I still like to research and debate.

  • There are kids who find exercise soul-crushing vapid toiling too.

    Just for some perspective on “what’s good for you.” I personally think I’d have been more successful in life if I was better at essay writing. But I’m not sure if it’s a practice thing, or an innate ability thing. I have to assume I just need(ed) lots more practice and guidance.

    I’m also on a similar path right now learning more about programming. AI is helping me understand larger structures, and reinforcing my understanding and use of coding terminology. Even if I’m not writing code, I need to be able to talk about it a bit better to interact with the AI optimally.

    But this need to speak in a more optimum way may go away as AI gets better. That’s the thing I worry about, the AI crossing a threshold where you can kind of just grunt at it and get what you want. But maybe Idiocracy is on my mind there.

    … just some random thoughts.

    The problem with AI here is that it tends to prefer agreeing to you over being correct and it's very likely that it teaches patterns and terminology to you that doesn't exist.

    For example, I just asked ChatGPT to explain a "backflip" in the context of agile development (I claimed I was an university student and that a teacher used that term in the context of moving tickets), and it came up with this:

    If your teacher linked "backflip" to moving tickets in a predictable fashion, they might have been emphasizing:

    The importance of minimizing rework or regressions.

    Understanding why work items move backward (if they do) and making that visible in your process.

    Managing workflow policies so that tickets don’t repeatedly “backflip” between stages, which can disrupt predictability.

    How This Might Help You Move Tickets More Predictably:
    If "backflip" means work moving backward:

    Track the Cause of Backflips:
    Identify why tickets are moving backward (incomplete acceptance criteria, insufficient definition of done, unclear requirements).

    Improve Definition of Ready/Done:
    Tighten entry/exit criteria to reduce backflows.

    Add Checkpoints:
    Build small validation steps earlier to catch issues sooner.

    Visualize Flow:
    Use a Kanban board to visualize backward movement and analyze bottlenecks or quality gaps.

    It just takes the nonsensical word, makes something up, and claims that it's right.

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    Another look at students, AI, and Essays on the Search Engine podcast. "What should we do about teens using AI to do their homework?"

    Opinions from students and experts.

    Podcast episode webpage

    Podcast file

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    Once again I'll say, I'm perfectly fine with the death of the essay as viable school homework.

    In my experience, teachers graded only on grammar and formatting. Teaching - and more to the point, grading - effective writing skills is harder than nitpicking punctuation, spelling and font choices, so guess what happens more often?

    You want school to mean anything, you're going to have to switch to verbal or demonstrable skills instead of paperwork. Which society probably needs to do anyway.

  • The problem with AI here is that it tends to prefer agreeing to you over being correct and it's very likely that it teaches patterns and terminology to you that doesn't exist.

    For example, I just asked ChatGPT to explain a "backflip" in the context of agile development (I claimed I was an university student and that a teacher used that term in the context of moving tickets), and it came up with this:

    If your teacher linked "backflip" to moving tickets in a predictable fashion, they might have been emphasizing:

    The importance of minimizing rework or regressions.

    Understanding why work items move backward (if they do) and making that visible in your process.

    Managing workflow policies so that tickets don’t repeatedly “backflip” between stages, which can disrupt predictability.

    How This Might Help You Move Tickets More Predictably:
    If "backflip" means work moving backward:

    Track the Cause of Backflips:
    Identify why tickets are moving backward (incomplete acceptance criteria, insufficient definition of done, unclear requirements).

    Improve Definition of Ready/Done:
    Tighten entry/exit criteria to reduce backflows.

    Add Checkpoints:
    Build small validation steps earlier to catch issues sooner.

    Visualize Flow:
    Use a Kanban board to visualize backward movement and analyze bottlenecks or quality gaps.

    It just takes the nonsensical word, makes something up, and claims that it's right.

    I believe you and agree.

    I have to be carful to not ask the AI leading questions. It’s very happy to go off and fix things that don’t need fixing when I suggest there is a bug, but in reality it’s user error or a configuration error on my part.

    It’s so eager to please.

  • I believe you and agree.

    I have to be carful to not ask the AI leading questions. It’s very happy to go off and fix things that don’t need fixing when I suggest there is a bug, but in reality it’s user error or a configuration error on my part.

    It’s so eager to please.

    Yeah, as soon as the question could be interpreted as leading, it will directly follow your lead.

    I had a weird issue with Github the other day, and after Google and the documentation failed me, I asked ChatGPT as a last-ditch effort.

    My issue was that some file that really can't have an empty newline at the end had an empty newline at the end, no matter what I did to the files before committing. I figured, that something was adding a newline and ChatGPT confirmed that almost enthusiastically. It was so sure that Github did that and told me that it's a frequent complaint.

    Turns out, no, it doesn't. All that happened is that I first committed the file with an empty newline by accident, and Github raw files has a caching mechanism that's set to quite a long time. So all I had to do was to just wait for a bit.

    Wasted about an hour of my time.

  • The problem with AI here is that it tends to prefer agreeing to you over being correct and it's very likely that it teaches patterns and terminology to you that doesn't exist.

    For example, I just asked ChatGPT to explain a "backflip" in the context of agile development (I claimed I was an university student and that a teacher used that term in the context of moving tickets), and it came up with this:

    If your teacher linked "backflip" to moving tickets in a predictable fashion, they might have been emphasizing:

    The importance of minimizing rework or regressions.

    Understanding why work items move backward (if they do) and making that visible in your process.

    Managing workflow policies so that tickets don’t repeatedly “backflip” between stages, which can disrupt predictability.

    How This Might Help You Move Tickets More Predictably:
    If "backflip" means work moving backward:

    Track the Cause of Backflips:
    Identify why tickets are moving backward (incomplete acceptance criteria, insufficient definition of done, unclear requirements).

    Improve Definition of Ready/Done:
    Tighten entry/exit criteria to reduce backflows.

    Add Checkpoints:
    Build small validation steps earlier to catch issues sooner.

    Visualize Flow:
    Use a Kanban board to visualize backward movement and analyze bottlenecks or quality gaps.

    It just takes the nonsensical word, makes something up, and claims that it's right.

    The joke is on you (and all of us) though. I'm going to start using "backflip" in my agile process terminology.

  • I'm still looking for a good reason to believe critical thinking and intelligence are taking a dive. It's so very easy to claim the kids aren't all right. But I wish someone would check. An interview with the gpt cheaters? A survey checking that those brilliant essays aren't from people using better prompts? Let's hear from the kids! Everyone knows nobody asked us when we were being turned into ungrammatical zombies by spell check/grammar check/texting/video content/ipads/the calculator.

    IMO, kids use ChatGPT because they are aware enough to understand that the degree is what really matters in our society, so putting in the effort to understand the material when they could put in way less effort and still pass is a waste of effort.

    We all understand what the goal of school should be, but that learning doesn't really align with the arbitrary measurements we use to track learning.

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    Lots I disagree with in this article, but I agree with the message.

    On another note, I found this section very funny:

    Disgraced cryptocurrency swindler Sam Bankman-Fried, for example, once told an interviewer the following, thereby helpfully outing himself as an idiot.

    “I would never read a book…I’m very skeptical of books. I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that. I think, if you wrote a book, you fucked up, and it should have been a six-paragraph blog post.”

    Extend his prison sentence.

  • Lots I disagree with in this article, but I agree with the message.

    On another note, I found this section very funny:

    Disgraced cryptocurrency swindler Sam Bankman-Fried, for example, once told an interviewer the following, thereby helpfully outing himself as an idiot.

    “I would never read a book…I’m very skeptical of books. I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that. I think, if you wrote a book, you fucked up, and it should have been a six-paragraph blog post.”

    Extend his prison sentence.

    Initially I thought it was something like Aurelius' diary entry on not spending too much in books and living in the moment. Nope, he's just lazy. I have a friend like that, who reads AI summaries instead of the actual articles. Infuriating to say the least.

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    It's sad because for most people school is about the only time anybody cares enough about your thoughts to actually read an essay and respond to it intelligently.

  • Lots I disagree with in this article, but I agree with the message.

    On another note, I found this section very funny:

    Disgraced cryptocurrency swindler Sam Bankman-Fried, for example, once told an interviewer the following, thereby helpfully outing himself as an idiot.

    “I would never read a book…I’m very skeptical of books. I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that. I think, if you wrote a book, you fucked up, and it should have been a six-paragraph blog post.”

    Extend his prison sentence.

    Yes but let him take time off for reading and shiwing ge comprehends good books.

    In a way you or i could knock out in like a really nice month full of cocoa and paper smells.

    He will die in a cage.

  • Once again I'll say, I'm perfectly fine with the death of the essay as viable school homework.

    In my experience, teachers graded only on grammar and formatting. Teaching - and more to the point, grading - effective writing skills is harder than nitpicking punctuation, spelling and font choices, so guess what happens more often?

    You want school to mean anything, you're going to have to switch to verbal or demonstrable skills instead of paperwork. Which society probably needs to do anyway.

    Or you let radicals be teachers, and you let teachers put some fuckingbpasdion into their work.

  • I'm still looking for a good reason to believe critical thinking and intelligence are taking a dive. It's so very easy to claim the kids aren't all right. But I wish someone would check. An interview with the gpt cheaters? A survey checking that those brilliant essays aren't from people using better prompts? Let's hear from the kids! Everyone knows nobody asked us when we were being turned into ungrammatical zombies by spell check/grammar check/texting/video content/ipads/the calculator.

    Critical thinking is on the downturn, but, interestingly, it's by date, not birthdate. It happens with exposure to social media algorithms and llm's, more than anything else.

    The living death of our humanity is a monumental testament yo neuroplasticity and our ability to keep changing deep into old age.

    Its a really inspiring kind of horror.

  • IMO, kids use ChatGPT because they are aware enough to understand that the degree is what really matters in our society, so putting in the effort to understand the material when they could put in way less effort and still pass is a waste of effort.

    We all understand what the goal of school should be, but that learning doesn't really align with the arbitrary measurements we use to track learning.

    I think as long as you hit some very basic milestones, and don't become a fascist, you're recoverable. Can be a person.

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    We had copy and paste lol, nothing close to chatgpt but it was similar

  • We're Not Innovating, We’re Just Forgetting Slower

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    The author’s take is detached from reality, filled with hypocrisy and gatekeeping. "Opinionated" is another term - for friendliness and neutrality. Complaining about reality means a degree of detachment from it by intention. When was the last time, Mr author, you had to replace a failed DIMM in your modern computer? When was the last time, Mr commenter, you had to make your own furniture because it's harder to find a thing of the right dimensions to buy? But when that was more common, it was also easier to get the materials and the tools, because ordering things over the Internet and getting them delivered the next day was less common. In terms of managing my home I feel that 00s were nicer than now. Were the centralized "silk road" of today with TSMC kicked out (a nuke, suppose, or a political change), would you prefer less efficient yet more distributed production of electronics? That would have less allowance for various things hidden from users, that happen in modern RAM. Possibly much less. If there was no technological or production cost improvement, we’d just use the old version. I think their point was that there's no architectural innovation in some things. Yes, there is a regular shift in computing philosophy, but this is driving by new technologies and usually computing performance descending to be accessibly at commodity pricing. The Raspberry Pi wasn’t a revolutionary fast computer, but it changed the world because it was enough computing power and it was dirt cheap. Maybe those shifts are in market philosophies in tech. I agree, there is something appealing about it to you and me, but most people don’t care…and thats okay! To them its a tool to get something done. They are not in love with the tool, nor do they need to be. There's a screwdriver. I can imagine there's a fitting basic amount of attention a piece of knowledge gets. I can imagine some person not knowing how to use a screwdriver (substitute with something better) is below that. And some are far above that, maybe. I think the majority of humans is below the level of knowledge computers in our reality require. That's not the level you or the author possess. That's about the level I possessed in my childhood, nothing impressive. Mr. author, no one is stopping you from using your TI-99 today, but in fact you didn’t use it to write your article either. Why is that? Because the TI-99 is a tiny fraction of the function and complexity of a modern computer. Creating something close to a modern computer from discrete components with “part numbers you can look up” would be massively expensive, incredibly slow, and comparatively consume massive amounts of electricity vs today’s modern computers. It would seem we are getting a better deal from the same amount of energy spent with modern computers then. Does this seem right to you? It's philosophy and not logic, but I think you know that for getting something you pay something. There's no energy out of nowhere. Discrete components may not make sense. But maybe the insane efficiency we have is paid for with our future. It's made possible by centralization of economy and society and geopolitics, which wasn't needed to make TI-99. Do you think a surgeon understands how a CCD electronic camera works that is attached to their laparoscope? Is the surgeon un-educated that they aren’t fluent in circuit theory that allows the camera to display the guts of the patient they’re operating on? A surgeon has another specialist nearby, and that specialist doesn't just know these things, but also a lot of other knowledge necessary for them and the surgeon to unambiguously communicate, avoiding fatal mistakes. A bit more expense is spent here than just throwing a device at a surgeon not understanding how it works. A fair bit. Such gatekeeping! So unless you know the actual engineering principles behind a device you’re using, you shouldn’t be allowed to use it? Why not: Such respect! In truth, why wouldn't we trust students to make good use of understanding of their tools and the universe around them, since every human's corpus of knowledge is unique and wonderful, and not intentionally limit them. Innovation isn’t just creating new features or functionality. In fact, most I’d argue is taking existing features or functions and delivering them for substantially less cost/effort. Is change of policy innovation? In our world I see a lot of that. Driven by social and commercial and political interests naturally. As I’m reading this article, I am thinking about a farmer watching Mr. author eat a sandwich made with bread. A basic touch on your thoughts further is supposed to be part of school program in many countries. Perhaps, but these simple solutions also can frequently only offer simple functionality. Additionally, “the best engineering solutions” are often some of the most expensive. You don’t always need the best, and if best is the only option, then that may mean going without, which is worst than a mediocre solution and what we frequently had in the past. Does more complex functionality justify this? Who decides what we need? Who decides what is better and what is worse? This comes to policy decisions again. Authority. I think modern authority is misplaced, and were it not, we'd have an environment more similar to what the author wants. The reason your TI-99 and my c64 don’t require constant updates is because they were born before the concept of cybersecurity existed. If you’re going to have internet connected devices they its a near requirement to receive updates for security. Not all updates are for security. And an insecure device still can work years after years. If you don’t want internet connected devices, you can get those too, but they may be extremely expensive, so pony up the cash and put your money where your mouth is. Willpower is a tremendous limitation which people usually ignore. It's very hard to do this when everyone around doesn't. It would be very easy if you were choosing for yourself without network effects and interoperability requirements. So your argument for me doesn't work in your favor, when looking closely. (Similar to "if you disagree with this law, you can explain it at the police station".) Don’t think even a DEC PDP 11 mainframe sold in the same era was entirely known by a handful of people, and even that is a tiny fraction of functionality of today’s cheap commodity PCs. There's a graphical 2d space shooter game for PDP-11. Just saying. Also on its architecture some Soviet clones were made, in the form factor of PCs. With networking capabilities, they were used as command machines for other kinds of simpler PCs, or for production lines, and could be used as file shares, IIRC. I don't remember what that was called, but the absolutely weirdest part was seeing in comments people remembering using that in university computer labs and even in school computer labs, so that actually existed in the USSR. Kinda expensive though, even without Soviet inefficiency. It was made as a consumer electronics product with the least cost they thought they could get away with and have it still sell. Yes, which leads to different requirements today. This doesn't stop the discussion. That leads it to the question what changed. We are not obligated to take the perpetual centralization of economies and societies like some divine judgement. We don’t need most of these consumer electronics to last. Who's we? Are you deciding what will Intel RnD focus on, or what will Microsoft change in their OS and applications, or what will Apple produce? Authority, again. If it still works, why isn’t he using one? Could it be he wants the new features and functionality like the rest of us? Yes. It still works for offline purposes. It doesn't work where the modern web is not operable with it. This in my opinion reinforces their idea, not yours. These are my replies. I'll add my own principal opinion - a civilization can be as tall as a human forming it. Abstractions leak, and our world is continuous, so all abstractions leak. To know which do and don't for the particular purpose, you need to know principles. You can use abstractions without looking inside them to build a system inside an architecture, but you can't build an architecture and pick real world solutions for those abstractions without understanding those real wold solutions. Also horizontal connections between abstractions are much more tolerant to leaks than vertical ones. And there's no moral law forbidding us to look above our current environment to understand in which directions it may change.
  • The Prototype: One Step Closer To Fusion Power

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    As someone else mentioned: Helion Energy: Located in Everett, Helion is developing a magneto-inertial fusion technology and has announced plans for the world's first fusion power plant in Washington State. They have also secured a significant investment and a power purchase agreement with Microsoft for electricity from their fusion plant. Zap Energy: Also based in Everett, Zap Energy is focusing on developing affordable, compact, and scalable fusion energy technology. They are working towards a commercially viable fusion energy solution and have received visits from state leaders to witness their progress. Avalanche Energy: Avalanche is planning a facility in Eastern Washington for commercial-scale testing of radioactive fusion technologies, according to GeekWire.
  • Microsoft is moving antivirus providers out of the Windows kernel

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    I could see some exception for windows 11 IoT being made, but I honestly don’t know.
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    Not our. i talk, and you talk. it is our discussion. It’s a discussion you are trying to have i am not trying to have, i am having it. here you are, replying to me. why are you trying so hard to prove that a discussion is not a discussion? it does not make sense. I labeled as a layman’s guess. yeah. and since i am more knowledgeable than you in this particular regard, i contributed some information you might not have had. now you do and your future layman's guess can be more educated. that is how the discussion works. and for some strange reason, you seem to be pissed about it.
  • Here's your first look at the rebooted Digg | TechCrunch

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    Digg has been basically dead for 15 years.
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    Hold on let me find something[image: 1b188197-bd96-49bd-8fc0-0598e75468ea.avif]
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    [image: c1b6d049-afed-4094-a09b-5af6746c814f.gif]
  • WhatsApp provides no cryptographic management for group messages

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    Just be sure to add only the people you want to be there. I've heard some people add others and it's a bit messy