this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
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AI Is Destroying a Generation of Students (futurism.com)
submitted 1 week ago by cypherpunks@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.ml
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[–] Samsuma@lemmy.ml 55 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

"I am often left with a choice between soliciting participation where students are merely the deadpan voice boxes of hallucinatory AI slop, or silence," the Philadelphia teacher despaired. "Which am I supposed to choose?"

ChatGPT isn't its own, unique problem. It's a symptom of a totalizing cultural paradigm in which passive consumption and regurgitation of content becomes the status quo," Nathan Schmidt, a university lecturer and managing editor at Gamers With Glasses, told 404.

Seems to be easier to blame students for understandably responding to rote-practice, monotonous factory-work oriented slopfest curricula with slop, rather than actually addressing the core issue at hand.

[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Yeah it's amazing how people can be so uncritical of their own control. If your control is undermined by stastitics, then maybe statistics isn't the problem.

[–] AnarchistArtificer@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

"Guard labour" is a fairly new-to-me phrase that makes a lot of weird things about modern society making more sense.

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Education system lags behind the times and cannot properly adjust for new tools and technology? Unheard of!

Education system created to make people into complacent exploitables for the capitalists? Preposterous, are you commie or what?!

[–] beejjorgensen@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

What is that core issue, in your opinion?

[–] Samsuma@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

in short: captalism lol.

slightly longer: captialism. lmao.

[–] slacktoid@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I can elaborate on that. In education no one cares about what you've learned, just what your grade is, based on your grades you get a job. Better grades, better job, better pay. We have long before AI decoupled learning from education.

In my opinion, the kids are only playing the game the way it's meant to be played. Do whatever it takes to get the highest grade, learning is for suckers / things you actually care about.

[–] QuarterSwede@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The sad thing is that leads to graduates that don’t understand why they aren’t getting hired. I give zero shits about a candidates GPA. All that tells me is that they can take tests well.It doesn’t tell me anything about their work ethic, reliability, critical thinking, how they handle customers/peers.

[–] slacktoid@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I agree with you. But you, no offense, seem like the exception rather than the rule of hiring practices. The issues with education that were kinda being brushed aside are now coming front and center with AI, I would argue the education system needs to change to prioritize critical thinking and reasoning, that way even AI can't help them get ahead there. Cause you can have this thing give you an output but you still need to make sure it makes sense. Now I'm not saying there aren't advantages to applying yourself to read and parse text or even knowing your multiplication tables. It works your brain like a muscle. That definitely has advantages IMO. But the education system that prioritizes rote learning and memorization needs to change. Cause that's all it does as of now IMO.

[–] beejjorgensen@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 week ago

I certainly can't speak for all educators and grade levels, but in my junior and senior CS courses, I don't have them memorize anything and they gotta solve problems.

[–] QuarterSwede@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I don’t think I’m the exception. Most of the hiring managers I know feel the same way irregardless of the industry they’re in.

Rote memorization has definitely helped destroy the education of many generations. Definitely agree.

[–] Samsuma@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago

Yep, pretty much, I didn't feel like putting it into words, so thanks for this. I'd add that arguably, when students "play the game", they get the same flack, or worse, than job applicants who exaggerate or straight up lie in their resume the same way companies lie about free unlimited PTOs, job security, a clear career ladder, etc.

Using morality or honesty as an argument against students who cheat is an attack on students, a distraction from the fact that this shit doesn't work the way it was advertised actually, which has been internalized and normalized in many societies, left uncontested, which is big bad.

[–] doo@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 week ago

I would say that we've just discovered that our approach to test knowledge and critical thinking was secondary to the means we used.

Apparently, essay writing doesn't require either of those.

Which means we have to think how we teach kids. They will and should use helper tools, but just like we teach multiplication table before allowing calculators, well have to establish what students have to learn before they can use the LLMs in their studying.

[–] Sims@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 week ago

No, "Capitalism" is Destroying a Generation of Students. It is destroying jobs and most other existential problems come from that belief system, but AI - for now - is a tool.

Only in a terrible environments with psychopath behavior, does it do harm. Unfortunately, that describes 99% of all leadership under Capitalism. It has always and will always be powerful people misusing tools/tech for their own individual benefit. That is what 'free competition' allows to happen. Live with it, or complain about Capitalism instead.

[–] wuphysics87@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's not a matter of the tools or the times. It's a matter of teachers not engaging students in a way where learning is organic. Natural. Fun. When I was in school, we didn't have ai, but when I was asked a question on an exam "what is Jane Eyre's aunt's maiden name" I lost all respect for the teacher and shut off.

A truly good teacher not only has a mastery of the material, they have a compelling and creative way of delivering the content. Class becomes a page turner. I want to keep reading to find out what's next.

Such people are rare, but they share similarities. First, they form meaningful relationships with students. Beyond surface level things like "what's your pet's name". Relationships where students come to the teacher for life advice. Teachers who also do things like go to student events and cheer for them. Like a tennis match or a piano recital.

Good course design is critical. Grades can not be a punishment or something which causes students stress. Grades are the number one reason students cheat. And why wouldn't they? I hate this thing, and I need straight A's to get into that prestigious school (where I will continue to cheat). Perhaps we should just rid of grades all together.

Now, when I say its matter of teachers not doing X, I'm not blaming them. But ai is on the doorstep, and short of turning schools into more of police states, the only way to change is for teachers to change. And it works. There are those of us who have shaped ourselves this way since before ai was an issue.

[–] theshatterstone54@feddit.uk 2 points 1 week ago

This is it! This is it! If teachers can connect to students, then students will listen, will engage, and will be interested, excited, and ready to learn.

I'm not saying it's easy, I'm not saying it's common, but I am saying that I've had a total of about 40 teachers before university, and of them, there are only 2 that I can point to, where students at large felt really engaged with the class. And this is why.

[–] tastemyglaive@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They already taught me to write cursive, so, as far as I'm concerned, the education system has outlived its usefulness. You want a future for your kids? Come across the Pacific, my former countrymen. It's not so wide and deep as it appears!

[–] tastemyglaive@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago

Also, "a generation" and "AI" are both optimistic. America is not recovering in its current form.