The problem is: what should you learn? How do you learn it? How do you know what is "right", "true", etc.

I consider myself lucky. I was schooled before the WWW became a thing, I remember the "invention" of the PC. I am used to books and reading. To me, that is a massive advantage.

As a result, "AI" becomes a useful tool. I use it to save time, or to occasionally get new ideas. But I am very aware that it is a problematic, faulty tool. Younger generations have it much harder here ...

The bigger problem may well be that we have no clue what to teach, and how to teach it. That has always been true, but AI, the WWW, social media and other stuff just makes this a lot harder now.

I let me students use AI all they want. But I also tell them to be critical. And I create problems where AI has a good chance of fail quite spectacularly. It pays to work in niches ;-)

In the end you can wallpaper over cracks, but it is still wallpaper.

Disclosure: not a professional coder here (although I code a lot for scientific data analysis).

Hear me out: I totally get that "vibe coding" can (and should) be a scary proposition for professional coders. Not talking job security, I am talking code quality and code reliability. You know better that I ever will why this is generally a bad idea.

But: for most people on this planet, computers are an appliance. And the entry threshold to writing useful code is pretty high. Now, I would assume that even with perfect vibe coding, it will be pretty hard to get code that does what you intend it to do (and that is assuming vibe coding writes good code). As I always say: computers do what you tell them to do, not what you *think* you told them to do. Big difference. Still, could it not be, shall we say, liberating if more people could create useful code if they were able to provide clear instructions? Just sayin' ...

Yeah, and Outlook does not synchronize with Teams properly, and Teams meetings may or may not work properly depending on the phase of the Moon, and teams is _really_ bad on the iPad, and you never know where files are in Teams (in Chat, Sharepoint?, and I have to click so many times to get what I want, and even more to download it) and on and on and on.

I marvel at Microsoft to turn what already has been a raging dumpster fire into a much bigger combined CF/dumpster fire. That takes skill and a lot of resources! Chapeau! At this point I am especially critical of Teams which, with luck, works maybe 90% if the time. I often wonder whether it is actually controlled by gremlins/China/Russia, and not Microsoft.

Nuff' said. I am just amazed people pay for this & companies flock to it ....

Ha ha ha!

Does this mean AI only needs a single brain cell??

"The basic issue is that Disney was never particularly interested in running FiveThirtyEight as a business, even though I think it could have been a good business."

It does not take Superhero powers to figure out that small business like 538 do not typically thrive under the umbrella of big businesses like that. They are peanuts to them, and if typically does not even matter if they are good. I am sorry for the people who put their hearts into it, but maybe people will learn from this .... Nah, who am I kidding?

This would actually be an interesting experiment. All crypto that the US seizes is being held for a very long time. Two things ought to happen:

(1) the value at seizure is recorded and tracked from thereon out. The data are publicly available.

(2) We all watch how long it would take to steal any of these assets. Think if it as a test portfolio. Except with real crypto (lol, "real" crypto).

Benefits: long-term data on crypto in a real-life scenario, without really harming anybody (see El Salvador!). And an ongoing yet open competition on how to secure crypto. Note that I made no assumption on how the crypto is being stored ...

... suicide squad. I presume.

60 hours/week the productivity sweet spot? Yeah, that is _so_ supported by what we know about humans ... As the British say: balderdash.

Good to know that Google overlords have never heard of the Pareto Principle.

I had to chuckle, it's the American solution: throw more money (aka GPUs) at it. Wait, wasn't it "work smarter, not harder"?

Seems like the "AI" "industry" is ripe for disruption. Anyone?

A single (?) $200bn data center in Texas or Louisiana? Tornadoes, hurricanes (depending on precise location)? A single not so uncommon event can shred the whole operation, and because of this, nobody will want to insure this, either. Interesting, seems a bit dodgy. So Wyoming will be it, I suppose ... but I am applying common sense.

Elon Musk wants to go to Mars because he wants to "save" humanity ... by living on an inhospitable world which we have no hope of ever terraforming, to which the round trip presently takes between 2 and 3 years. Same reason he fathers so many children (well, if I am hospitable). So colonization, surprise, surprise.

There is no reasonable commercial value in going to Mars. Scientific value? Sure. Space colonization, sure, but that supports maybe scientific study. It's not our escape hatch. Commercial. Maybe in the far, far future. But unless you can mine extremely rare materials really easily on Mars and bring them back, I see no benefit. Neither do the bulk of space companies. This is about Musk getting his wish.

Frankly, he's got the money, he just wants the taxpayer to pay for what he is not interested into bankrolling himself because that would diminish his power on Earth.

Basically, Musk wants society to fund one person's folly. And make money off it, too, by charging an arm and a leg for it.

Worse. It is disorganized, confusing, clunky, and unreliable.

My rate of not being able to get into meetings I am invited to or I run and others try to get into is somewhere between 10 and 20% - and by that I mean the app not announcing people that are waiting. Links are not always working.

The worse I have encountered was that the three of us clicked the same link and were in parallel meetings, wondering where the others were. Even stepping back out and in did not work. Basically, at this point Teams conferencing is in my "not reliable" category ... the calendar seems to work, though. Whoopie!

It would have to be honest and truthful, always. How many people can I say this about? A handful.

So it would be fairly hard to "trust" an AI any time soon (if ever??). Trust and verify, as they say, trust and verify.

Considering that someone else here said that they rarely trust people I'd say: AI is being made by people, cannot presently reason, has no morals, no understanding, no empathy or sympathy ... hard to trust that, piling things on top of each other. I take it as a "data" point of questionable origin.

Maybe I can trust Waymo to get me from A to B in Phoenix, possibly even better than a Lyft or a cab. But overall? I'd trust it as much as my washing machine. Not much, really. YMMV

First, the "necessity" of getting a PhD depends on the field / specialty. In some areas they are a still a must (professor, of course; grant writing researcher) or can be at least highly desirable (some areas of STEM, most researchers, certain medical areas). In some cases the extra pay is worth the extra time spent getting a PhD.

Second, it allows you to grow (up) more and buy yourself time before you join the rat race (or you can delay growing up and taking on responsibility - cuts both ways). Basically, if you need time, are willing to put in the work and willing to put up with the associated pains, it may be for you.

Generally, I find PhDs to be more flexible and deployable. Ideally PhDs are self-motivated, curious, flexible, quick studies, not afraid of difficulty - at least in my area of work. There is an expectation that PhDs require little supervision, ideally close to none. They are supposed to know what to do, or figure it out themselves, quickly. PhDs usually get more freedoms at work for that reason.

In a way I find it easier to be employed as a PhD than decades ago, maybe simply because many do not go that route to become professors anymore. YMVW greatly depending on field, I realize that. But if getting a PhD is a plan that targets personal growth rather simple delay prior to entering the job market, people seem to be doing fine.

And since /. ought to be (ha!) full of engineers, they can probably not relate at all - no need for a PhD in engineering, really. I know that.

To me the best career paths are getting a PhD in a reasonable field, or learning a trade and running your own business. The former seems more fun, the latter will earn you more money, if done right, on average. Have had cab drivers with PhDs before - still waiting for a plumber with a PhD. Must exist, somewhere ...