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Tutoring company tells parents to save their money and 'use AI instead'

142 points · 233 comments · theanonymousone

  1. saadn92 · · focus · HN ↗
    I'm all for saving money where you can, but these models really aren't great for learning because they love giving you answers and it's so easy to get an answer, but the process to get to the answer is how you actually learn. Unless you put guardrails in place to actually learn, I don't think this advice is good.
    1. jgbuddy · · focus · HN ↗
      disagree- i used it for the last few years of coursework preparing for exams. If you give it context (i'm studying for an exam, do not give hints unless asked, your objective is to help my understanding) it is incredibly helpful. This isn't advice, it's a company going out of business.
      1. LollipopYakuza · · focus · HN ↗
        I have recently realised that people actually don't know how to prompt. They use AI "raw" and don't understand how the question can have a drastic impact on the result, let alone using skills or system prompts.

        Learning new topics or skills is a very good example, I had the same experience as you with Claude when I learned a new language.

        1. philipwhiuk · · focus · HN ↗
          Maybe some argue it's ASI but for me AGI requires that the AI understand what you're trying to ask rather than require you to carefully engineer a prompt.
          1. pixl97 · · focus · HN ↗
            "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?"

            If a random person comes up and asks you a malformed question how do you answer? What's worse if what if the question is not actually malformed in some contexts and because you're a wizard that has massive amount of contextual information there are plenty of right answers for the 'wrong' question you just asked.

            In schools classrooms tend to avoid unlimited exploration as it would take unlimited time. On your AI prompt the next thing you ask could be anything, anything at all. Just exactly how is the AI supposed to know if you're an idiot?

            1. spwa4 · · focus · HN ↗
              Continuing the great tradition of claiming that any machine, and especially any AI, unless it takes over literally everything, is worthless. Or in the words of Pablo Picasso:

              "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." (he was not joking by the way)

              Of course, if computers DO threaten to take over literally everything, then people are even more scared and react aggressively, as demonstrated in this 1939 article describing IBM's vocoders:

              "The Pedro Peril" (the first AI that actually talked back was nicknamed Pedro, and described as "the latest and most fearful gadget from IBM", the journalist's conclusion was to suggest Pedro be deported as he would spread propaganda and maybe even become a dictator) (unsigned Washington Post editorial, 1939)

              Here&#x27;s Pedro in action: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=0rAyrmm7vv0" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=0rAyrmm7vv0

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