the roamerJul 24, 2025

Met my MSc dissertation students this week. All good natured people. But the genAI rot is spreading.

About half of them do their work, and ask me questions about the problems they encounter. I advise on possible next steps. We meet again next week. All good.

But.

The other half, each of them perfectly well meaning, came back to me with questions that had nothing to do with their projects, and proposed solutions that are alien to the framework we are using. After some serious conversations, I found that in each case they had relied on chatGTP answers to their prompts. They had not read the actual papers I had given them.

Some had implemented equations that are patently false, not by error (this would be good for learning), but because chatGPT told them so.

A significant part our students can't read anymore. They need to interact with genAI, and they think this is research.

We are heading for trouble. In higher education, and in society at large.

#noAI #AcademicChatter

Show threadWulfy—Speaker to the machinesJul 25, 2025

@the_roamer

Sounds like you are remis in teaching 50% of your class hoe to appropriately use the tools they have 👹

Academics themselves use AI to read papers (worse review papers).

They who are without sin, let them cast the first stone.

Show threadltningJul 25, 2025
@n_dimension How is that @the_roamer's job? To teach students how to use tools that are not even the right ones for the job? To teach them to read the assignment rather than guessing wildly and spewing out random and irrelevant questions?
And that's not even beginning to touch upon the fundamental ethical problems arising from nearly any use of current genai services (certainly those used by these students) - like training on stolen material and burning up the planet in the process, all while making research and innovation grind to a halt and rendering the next generation even more inept than the current one.
Show threadWulfy—Speaker to the machines

@ltning @the_roamer

It's why you get the big bucks Prof!
Figure it out Einstein 😁

Jul 25, 2025 at 1:13amWeb