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Comment Re: Ahead of the Game (Score 1) 70

I agree there. It is too soon to really adjust education to Ai. I am not sure education should lead there. I think it needs to follow up trends. Of course, commercially it is interesting to stick an Ai label on every course.
Personally, I learn my students (basic course in high school) to use AI as a teacher. Use it when you are stuck, ask it to explain an error. You really have to force an llm not to give the full solution. More than once it solved the complete exercise when asked to explain an error. It is way too eager.

Comment Re: Teach code reviewing (Score 1) 70

My best guess is that coding skills will become rare. Reviewing will become impossible due to lack of staff.
I bet plenty of incentive will be there to bypass the reviewing process. I would not be surprised if more focus will be placed on testing and reporting errors that AI then can correct. Sounds like Ai will do the fun part.

Comment Re: Teach code reviewing (Score 1) 70

True. I often wonder if I were a kid today I would still follow the same path. As a kid, I wanted to make animations with sound on a computer. All I had was basic, and I made suite a few, learning a lot in the process. No internet to help. Only a book my sister had from college.
It is all there these days. Want to make an animation? Plenty of programs and websites that ease the process. Want it in code? Someone made a beautiful library that does that.
I also was interested in electronics, so I bought an Atmel stk 500. Programming? Only assembly was free. So had to dig through the datasheet and example programs. Still no internet. We'll, it was beginning then. These days? It is a matter of stitching libraries together.
Well of course, you could do all that, or watch in awe how a YouTuber dedicated his life to doing exactly what you had in mind, excelling at it, making a spectacular video about it, doing crazy things you never thought of. After that, why bother.
I am pretty sure I would not be in the same place. Programming, math, electronics? It would not be that high on my priority list anymore. I'd probably consider it a waste of time.
Not easy being a kid these days.

Comment Re: I may be "old fashoned", but... (Score 1) 70

I teach high-school kids to program in python. A lot of kids struggle with the concept of what a programming language does. Some even use it chatgpt style. It takes a while before they realize the poor computer executes the code line by line and does not interpret anything.
I have tought many times to switch to basic or assembler for a very simple processor. But... with Ai demanding its place, I think this would demotivate a lot of students. From a pure educational point of view though, basic would be a good starting point for some. Education is however a world build on compromises, would be nice to research though.

Comment Re: Conversations with a robot (Score 1) 70

I noticed that talking to Ai requires a lot of linguistic skills. Describe what you want with a balanced amount of detail, formulate the question to get an unbiased answer, guide it in the amount of detail you expect in the answer,...
Not sure that holds up when you are using it as a coding assistant, but if it does, CS may need to take inspiration from language courses.

Comment Re:What the fuck?! (Score 1) 26

On the rare occasion they do something right - like blocking this merger - you can bet there's an ulterior motive. Now that the toll has been paid, they reveal they never actually cared about markets or competition, by letting the merger proceed.

I'm assuming a bribe has been paid, because they didn't extract any pledges to eliminate DEI, which the company pushes heavily. I have a hard time seeing the current CEO Neri announcing any kind of DEI rollback. I believe that's why he's being pushed out by big capital, a project that started concurrently with DOJ blocking the merger.

Comment Re:Yea. (Score 1) 105

I know a few programmers. Personally I am glad AI is threatening their job a little. Of course plenty are nice and mature people, but... a lot are also just over confident arrogant pricks. Low people skills, think they are on the top of the world (Rockstar programmer!) because they can use pointers. Loud and oversimplified opinions on any topic. You get the picture. Of course these kind of people work everywhere, but in my little world they seem to be more prevalent in programming related jobs. You do not need that many skills to get a great pay in that sector. Just be good in computational thinking. That's it. There is a big complicated world out there in which algorithmic thinking alone will get you nowhere.
So here is how this will go. Some people will read this, add a bit of salt to this comment recognize it, weigh it and say... yeah, that seems familiar but it is more complicated in reality. Others will get furiously red steaming all over their keyboard to shut me up and learn me a lesson. If that is you, don't bother. Expand your identity beyond programming. Get your hands dirty.

Comment Re: I agree (Score 1) 105

I am a math teacher and have been feeding chatgpt math questions. I think it made huge improvements. At first it just gave something that looked OK, if you scanned through, but was complete nonsense if you went through step by step. Like you get when someone with an extremely good memory but zero comprehension tries to do math. It was actually funny how it resembled an over confident student trying to hide he does not understand a thing when I asked some follow up questions. Last time, I entered a Pdf with a test about analytical geometry. It passed the test with flying colors. It still screws up sometimes, but who doesn't?

Comment So I don't think folks really understand (Score 1) 138

Just how absolutely batshit insane Americans are.

We do not care that China has nukes. God will swat those nukes away for us like gnats. And the golden dome will protect us.

Americans can convince themselves of absolutely anything all the way up to when they die in a firestorm. We really just do not give a shit. And the rest of the world needs to come to terms with that reality real fucking fast or we are going to Fermi paradox this Popsicle stand.

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