AI fails

Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.

PurplePenguin

Über Member
Missing hyphen in D.

You think newly-built is acceptable?
 
OP
OP
briantrumpet

briantrumpet

Timewaster
You think newly-built is acceptable?

"It has been newly built" is different from "a newly-built house": in the latter, "newly-built" is a adjectival singular concept (as in "freshly-baked bread"). The hyphen helps the reader see the singular concept, and ensures that the past participle doesn't attach itself to the noun without the 'newly'.
 
OP
OP
briantrumpet

briantrumpet

Timewaster
Looks like my opinion means that I'll have to pretend that I was thinking of informal writing.

1791541396331.png
 

PurplePenguin

Über Member
AI 1 briantrumpet 0

So back to the human set test. Bit rubbish isn't it? Of course, it is an excellent opportunity to teach kids how even teachers get it wrong sometimes, but I'd rather they just asked clear questions that, er, teach or test something.
 

Psamathe

Squire
Fail? or failure in the making?

OpenAI projected to bring in $20bn less in revenue than expected​

OpenAI has revealed that it is making about $20bn less in projected revenue than it had recently indicated to investors, raising questions about the break-neck growth rate in demand for AI.
...
However, this is significantly less than the $70bn that it had signalled in information provided to investors last month, which was widely reported.
OK companies often fail to achieve expected revenues but when looking for such massive investment it becomes a lot more significant.
 
OP
OP
briantrumpet

briantrumpet

Timewaster
AI 1 briantrumpet 0

So back to the human set test. Bit rubbish isn't it? Of course, it is an excellent opportunity to teach kids how even teachers get it wrong sometimes, but I'd rather they just asked clear questions that, er, teach or test something.

You do yourself a disservice: @PurplePenguin 1 @briantrumpet 0

You knew that 'rule' anyway, and all Gemini did was to correctly find references to it (actually a convention, rather than a 'rule', if I were to quibble).

And you could have set that test without any recourse to AI - all that it's done is write the code for an app that could have been written by a human. Teachers have been setting tests without AI for millennia.

Anyway, as I'm saying, that's not my central argument, as we agree that AI is amazing for some things. My argument is that it is highly problematic in the way that it's sometimes used, and that I think that misuse is part of their plan. And as a teacher and believing that our brains are miraculous organisms that will only truly thrive on Discovering Things and Working Stuff Out, I can't see me being anything other than highly sceptical of the AI industry. That doesn't stop me marvelling at what it *can* do usefully.
 
Last edited:

PurplePenguin

Über Member
I think there is a misunderstanding. The test was set by a human. My argument is that it would have be better for the kids if the teacher had bothered to get AI to check the question to make sure it was clear.

Also, I voted no spelling mistake, because hyphens are a mess of conventions.
 
OP
OP
briantrumpet

briantrumpet

Timewaster
I think there is a misunderstanding. The test was set by a human. My argument is that it would have be better for the kids if the teacher had bothered to get AI to check the question to make sure it was clear.

Also, I voted no spelling mistake, because hyphens are a mess of conventions.

Ah, OK. I thought that was the thing you'd got AI to do, and that I was the teacher referenced.

Of course, there's no guarantee that AI will always get the correct answer either, so you still need to know your (you're) shit if you're helping people learn stuff. There is a certain pleasure asking experts to justify their answers, especially when you are pretty sure that they are wrong. And learning that teachers make mistakes is an extremely valuable lesson in itself.
 

PurplePenguin

Über Member
Ah, OK. I thought that was the thing you'd got AI to do, and that I was the teacher referenced.

Of course, there's no guarantee that AI will always get the correct answer either, so you still need to know your (you're) shit if you're helping people learn stuff. There is a certain pleasure asking experts to justify their answers, especially when you are pretty sure that they are wrong. And learning that teachers make mistakes is an extremely valuable lesson in itself.

I think the whole "teachers make mistakes" argument that I referenced above is unhelpful. Yes, they do, but they should aspire to minimise them. I'm not one of those parents who regularly criticises teachers, because I understand the job is hard, lacking resource and poorly paid; however, I do think they could (and will do in the future) use AI more effectively. I've provided one example of that.

Also, a rant for another thread, but I don't understand the argument for getting kids to wear uncomfortable uniforms. Also the whole Mr and Mrs thing. It's the 21st century not Victorian times.
 
OP
OP
briantrumpet

briantrumpet

Timewaster
I think the whole "teachers make mistakes" argument that I referenced above is unhelpful. Yes, they do, but they should aspire to minimise them. I'm not one of those parents who regularly criticises teachers, because I understand the job is hard, lacking resource and poorly paid; however, I do think they could (and will do in the future) use AI more effectively. I've provided one example of that.

Also, a rant for another thread, but I don't understand the argument for getting kids to wear uncomfortable uniforms. Also the whole Mr and Mrs thing. It's the 21st century not Victorian times.

Of course teachers should aim to minimise mistakes, but AI is no more a guarantee of that than using things like books and dictionaries. AI can be a part of that, but again, I'm not arguing that AI is never helpful (obviously I'd end up in the hypocrisy thread if I did try to), so that's a bit of a strawman. One of the most fundamental criticisms of AI as it's being pushed is that it make people less adept at finding and evaluating information if you outsource the effort, and that's a bad example to be setting as an educator. I come back my analogy of asking other people to do your weights regime and wondering why you're not making any gains.

On the uniform thing, I must admit that I'm surprised that some of the state secondary schools round here have regressed to blazers n stuff having been at the halfway house of polo shirts (even if that's still uniform, it seems less silly). I know we've had this discussion before back in Cake Stop days.

Mr & Mrs... not entirely sure... would you call your doctor by their first name? A member of the police? A judge? Given that teachers tread a fine line between knowing pupils well enough that you can change their ways of thinking, but at the same time have the professional distance (for all sorts of reasons, not least safeguarding), the Mr/Mrs thing is a reminder (mostly to the pupils) that you mustn't be a friend, however good an understanding you have of each other, and that there is a necessary hierarchy. It would be genuinely interesting whether psychologically, or in hard data terms, institutional forms of address have any statistical significance in safeguarding outcomes.

I suppose the more basic question is whether any formal titles should be used in addressing people in any contexts, and if so, why.
 

swee'pea99

Regular
Depressing, if not surprising to sceptics. Notice the correlation between writing skills and performance in science.

https://www.bennettschool.cam.ac.uk/blog/is-chatgpt-bad-for-students/

View attachment 17657

Use it or lose it. Innit. Or, increasingly, don't need it, don't develop it.

Before we abandon ourselves to existential angst, it's worth remembering that people have been managing to develop impressive levels of natural stupidity, long before AI entered the frame:

IMG_20261009_151358_707.jpg



Bill Bryson The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America, 1989
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom