this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2024
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Like any tool, it depends how you use it. I have been learning a lot of math recently and have been chatting with AI to increase my understanding of the concepts. There are times when the textbook shows some steps that I don't understand why they're happening and I've questioned AI about it. Sometimes it takes a few tries of asking until you figure out the right question to ask to get the right answer you need, but that process of thinking helps you along the way anyways by crystallizing in your brain what exactly it is that you don't understand.
I have found it to be a very helpful tool in my educational path. However I am learning things because I want to understand them, not because I have to pass a test and that determination in me to want to understand is a big difference. Just getting hints to help you solve the problem might not really help in the long run, but it you're actually curious about what you're learning and focus on getting a deeper understanding of why and how something works rather than just getting the right answer, it can be a very useful tool.
Why are you so confident that the things you are learning from AI are correct? Are you just using it to gather other sources to review by hand or are you trying to have conversations with the AI?
We've all seen AI get the correct answer but the show your work part is nonsense, or vice versa. How do you verify what AI outputs to you?
I'm not at all confident in the answers directly. I've gotten plenty of wrong answers form AI and I've gotten plenty of correct answers. If anything it's just more practice for critical thinking skills, separating what is true and what isn't.
When it comes to math though, it's pretty straightforward, I'm just looking for context on some steps in the problems, maybe reminders of things I learned years ago and have forgotten, that sort of thing. As I said, I'm interested in actually understanding the stuff that I'm learning because I am using it for the things I'm working on so I'm mainly reading through textbooks and using AI as well as other sources online to round out my understanding of the concepts. If I'm getting the right answers and the things I am doing are working, it's a good indicator I'm on the right path.
It's not like I'm doing cutting edge physics or medical research where mistakes could cause lives.
Its sort of similar to saying poppy production overall is pretty negative, but if smart critical people use it sparingly and apprehensively, opiates could be of great benefit to that person.
Thats all well and good and all but AI is not being developed to help critical thinkers research slightly easier, its being created to reduce the amount of money companies spend on humans.
Until regulations are in place to guide the development of the technology in useful ways then I dont know any of it should be permitted. What's the rush for anyways?
Well I'm definitely not pushing for more AI and I like to try to stay nuanced on the topic. Like I mentioned in my first comment I have found it to be a very helpful tool but if used in other ways it could do more harm than good. I'm not involved in making or pushing AI but as long as it is an available tool I'm going to make use of it in the most responsible way I can and talk about how I use it knowing that I can't control what other people do but maybe I could help some people who are only using it to get answer hints like in the article to find more useful ways of using it.
When it comes to regulation, yeah I'm all for that. It's a sad reality that regulation always lags behind and generally doesn't get implemented until there's some sort of problem that scares the people in power who are mostly too old to understand what's happening anyways.
And as to what's the rush, I would say a combination of curiosity and good intentions mixed with the worst of capitalism, the carrot of financial gain for success and the stick of financial ruin for failure and I don't have a clue what percent of the pie each part makes up. I'm not saying it's a good situation but it's the way things go and I don't think anyone alive could stop it. Once something is out of the bag, there ain't any putting it back.
Basically I'm with you that it will be used for things that make life worse for people and that sucks, and it would be great if that was not the case but that doesn't change the fact that I can't do anything about that and meanwhile it can still be a useful tool and so I'm going to use it the best that I can regardless how others use it because there's really nothing I can do except keep pushing forward the best I can, just like anyone else.
It might just be the difference in perspective. I agree with your assessments if how things are but not how they will be in the future. There are countries that are more responsible in their research, so I know its possible. Its all politics and I dont believe in giving up on social change just yet.