I think the whole issue is much deeper, and stems from the fact that we (as in humanity, not any particular country) have perverted the very reason and purpose of education (assuming it ever was clear and uncorrupted, but that's another story).

Overwhelming majority of students don't learn because they want to. They don't want to become well read and spoken, they don't want to be able to answer questions without having to check on their phones, and so on and so forth. They "learn" because they have to. Because if there aren't enough check marks next to their name in an Excel spreadsheet somewhere, they're going to get in trouble. And that's why, if there's an easier way to get those check marks, of course they're going to use it!

Why spend days or weeks reading a long book if I can read an AI summary in 5 minutes and put a checkmark in the "read a book" column? Why spend time on writing an essay, if I can have ChatGPT do it and get a checkmark in the "essay" column?

I don't have a solution to this problem by the way, because I used to be a nerdy kid that actually enjoyed learning and craved more of it, but the real problem is not AI or LLMs, it's the whole approach to education (and to work afterwards: see the "oh shit, only a month until HR eval, what the hell were my personal goals that I made up at the beginning of the quarter?" situation so many of us face...)

Move to majority in-class assignments instead of piles of homework.

Llms are like a calculator for writing. Not good for school. But out here in the real world I use an LLM to formulate answers. I then review those things. My reasoning being that I will get a draft and then I'll perfect that draft. Llms are horrible at math, so any math is double checked.

I understand the fear of technology stunting critical thinking but LLMs are pretty darn recent, what happened to these highschoolers the last 14-15 or so years that left them with little to no reading or critical thinking skills? Where is the talk of parental involvement, teachers and educational systems prior to this?

Teachers have an incredibly hard job but the constant stream of these articles feels more like they’re trying to pass off the failures of our education system and failures of parents/society for decades onto the admittedly retarded technology that’s very recently entered existence…

I'm just gonna repost my comment to the original post on the 404media community:

Here's a funny story: I once got a D on an essay for my History of Physics class because it was so good that the TA was certain I had plagiarized it. The only reason I didn't end up in front of the ethics board was because she couldn't find any evidence of me doing so... because I hadn't. How many students are in the same situation due to overzealous teachers who have a bone to pick with AI?

Notice how most of the proposed "solutions" focus on bans, and ways to catch and punish students with almost none on improving archaic teaching techniques. Oral presentations, debates, real-world projects, essays on local subjects, using class to discuss subjects students previously studied instead of pontificating for 2 hours, doing away with homework, actually engaging students so they don't feel like cheating... there's loads of ways to teach without AI being a hindrance but it requires teachers to actually adapt instead of being stubborn, lazy twats with an inferiority complex.

If the educational system is not working, if AI has destroyed our educational system, and I think it's fair to say it has, if teachers feel there's nothing they can do to fix it, then throw it away and don't waste our tears on it. We must find other ways to educate. This is imperative, education is non-negotiable. I am not giving up in defeat, I am saying we must retreat from battles that are simply not viable anymore. Use them as a delaying action if you can, but if kids are learning from LLMs and Video games and Netflix and Youtube and Tiktok now, we need to find ways to get as much good educational content as we can onto those platforms. We need to find ways to manipulate their algorithms. We need alternative platforms that aren't corporate-controlled cesspools, where we can make the rules. Governments and institutions will be too slow to react. The only advantage we have is that we can act and react fast, even faster than the corporate interests that are burning down the Internet of Alexandria and blowing up the world into the next dark age. We can, and should, and must organize an educational resistance.

Literally nobody wants their kids to grow up like this. Not even the billionaires exploiting and profiting from this garbage. We have the advantage that everybody in the world will soon understand the scale of this problem as they are confronted with it themselves. Will it be too late? Maybe, but we have to assume it will be better if we at least try. Even if we have to rescue people one mind at a time, every effort is worthwhile and every victory is worth celebrating.

Why is this NSFW?

This isn't much different from what teachers said about the internet, search engines, and Wikipedia...