If you penalize people who use AI but in the process have learned the required information you make the problem even worse.

These problems are all because of a culture that favours the measurement over what is being measured.

You're not supposed to make more money, or be happier, or really become anything other than a better version of yourself.

I wonder if they still do this.

Why shouldn't universities switch to examinations where no technology (apart from say calculators) are allowed; and this is strictly enforced? This was certainly the norm when I went to university.

I agree that A.I. trivializes (or changes how you approach) a lot of take home work; but people who wanted to cheat could more or less always do so for that to some degree. I guess it makes it easier to do so; however my expectation would be a greater reliance or weighting on in person examinations as a response; as opposed to a normalization of cheating.

One way in which A.I. could be seen as contributing to this is that it is devaluing the importance of what were seen as 'intellectual' pursuits; as we now have automation for them that is at the very least often surface level effective for undergraduate work.

Have tests.

Supervise said tests to make sure people don't cheat.

That's how it worked when i was in university. Admittedly maybe that is easier in the sciences than humanities, but still, it seems doable. Cheating isn't a new phenomenon it just got cheaper and easier.

> I don’t think she was laughing two years later when I was TAing the class and we observed a fairly distinct gap of about 40 percentage points between the take-home test and the one administered in-person.

40pp is massive. Take homes are pretty much dead at that point. And not just in schools, but also for interviews. I don’t see how you can get a meaningful signal, it’s guaranteed they will be made using AI.

For me when I teach, no laptops or phones in class along with in-class handwritten paper quizzes on course readings and concepts has helped a lot.

To the majority of students, they seem quite laser focused on acquiring the degree with the right grades so that they can maximize their chance of a job after university (apart from the personal element of partying and having a boy/girl-friend etc.). The primary utility of the university to students is the credentialing, and secondarily the structure to the learning program, but otherwise the books themselves suffice to teach.

Perhaps we should move more training to technical institutes and people can come out with the knowledge of how to operate this or that thing. The problem is that everyone will know that the smarter student has gone for the higher-end university. The credentialing then works not because of the program but because of the selection that the university can do. Okay, so the whole thing continues to make sense even if AI zombifies everything.

https://pistolas.co.uk/work-that-need-not-be/

Ouch.

> Whatever your conception of the modern university, whether grand or grim, understanding the current landscape of campus-wide AI use, much less its intensification, should destroy it.

I hadn’t thought of this. Every school district and university tied into centralized AI inherently undermined its ability to decide how its kids are to be taught.

Schools will adapt, as they have already, by weighing grading more towards in-class quizzes and tests . I think the humanities will continue to struggle, but I see the AI boom making STEM more relevant, even if AI can automate a lot of code or math.

Because my student path is non-linear (vs just following a life script), I may be a bit weird / not the average student, but it's especially true for me that I'm very intentional about actually learning the things I sign up for classes to learn.

My point is that I'm not taking classes just for the motions or to create slop. With that context, here is how AI helped me very specifically in a recent linear algebra course:

1. I was able to prompt very specific questions, usually audits of my work, in ways that provided responses that were more like a socratic tutor and not a cheating parter. In this way I did not need to bother my professor as much or seek out a tutor, when I was stuck. But I also didnt shortcut my way to answers. I was intentionally limiting the AI assistance to finding small errors or jogging my memory about steps missed or next steps.

2. I vibe coded a note taking web application (started as a chrome plugin for notion) so that I could shortcode and pick math symbols while my other arm was full holding my newborn (yes I'm a dad too). This has since evolved into a full-on science writing platform that I love whether or not anyone else ever uses it (though I am trying to turn it into a business). Maybe I actually ended up adding more work to my math class but it added a layer to the learning (what math symbols are needed, what are typical patterns for this subject, etc) that I think helped with my overall absorbtion of the subject.

I dont know if #2 is transposable to other students or to other subjects but I imagine there is some version of a double major yet to be created that is Core Subject + "how to properly use AI to learn (including vibe coding tools to help yourself and other students)".

There are many other smaller ways AI can be used to help learning (flash cards, generated quizzes, etc) that are oft mentioned but that articles like this gloss over.

Having said that, I loved reading this (so well written it could not be AI despite the emdashes), and especially appreciate any mention of "The Whispering Earring", which is one of my spinning tops to remind me to remain vigilant of my cognitive health despite my almost complete embrace of AI.

I don't regret getting my degree (back in 2009), but I think requiring a person to have one is a dumb job requirement.

Frankly, we shouldn't have so many people going to university in the first place. There's a lot of people it's just utterly wasted on, and it drags down the entire apparatus as a result. In a sane society we'd have much more apprenticeships, vocational training, etc.

In this world, what are the benefits of a humanist education? The only reason we care so much about education is that it's how to determine merit in meritocratic societies, and therefore a key part in how people gain social status. In a world where AI does all the knowledge work and robots do all the physical work, with an 'elect few' owning everything and everyone else in a 'permanent underclass', why do the elect few even need to keep the permanent underclass alive?

Modern education is like that, even before AI. Check this https://www.jstor.org/stable/25006902