I teach 18 year olds who range in reading levels from preschool to college, but the majority of them are in the lower half that range. I am devastated by what AI and social media have done to them. My kids don’t think anymore. They don’t have interests. Literally, when I ask them what they’re interested in, so many of them can’t name anything for me. Even my smartest kids insist that ChatGPT is good “when used correctly.” I ask them, “How does one use it correctly then?” They can’t answer the question. They don’t have original thoughts. They just parrot back what they’ve heard in TikToks. They try to show me “information” ChatGPT gave them. I ask them, “How do you know this is true?” They move their phone closer to me for emphasis, exclaiming, “Look, it says it right here!” They cannot understand what I am asking them. It breaks my heart for them and honestly it makes it hard to continue teaching. If I were to quit, it would be because of how technology has stunted kids and how hard it’s become to reach them because of that.
The reason I found the article interesting is because there were multiple quotes - anecdotes, not statistic, sure, but first-hand - of kids using LLMs and lacking critical thinking to even understand how to check it. You need to have a model in your mind of how things should be to check it - this seems like it may be replacing the model in kids’ minds.
So I really do wonder if there will be a generational divide, with analytical and compositional skills dropping precipitously. I don’t know, but thought it interesting enough to post.
I bet so. Its very easy to allow the thing to just give you an answer. I had one employee who used to be so so, then suddenly they’re presenting all sorts of interesting factoids. But their design level never improved… There’s no LLM capable of critical thinking so their actual designs were still the old crapola.