Derek Hunt

Oct 4

"LLMs are made of software, but they do not work like most software. They are probabilistic and mostly unpredictable. AI excels at tasks that are intensely human: writing, ideation, faking empathy. However, it struggles with tasks that machines typically excel at, such as repeating a process consist...Read more

"LLMs are made of software, but they do not work like most software. They are probabilistic and mostly unpredictable. AI excels at tasks that are intensely human: writing, ideation, faking empathy. However, it struggles with tasks that machines typically excel at, such as repeating a process consistently or performing complex calculations without assistance. This quasi-human weirdness is why the best users of AI are often managers and teachers, people who can understand the perspective of others and correct it when it is going wrong. Ultimately, even if you don’t want to anthropomorphize AI, they seem to increasingly want to anthropomorphize themselves."

Oct 4

"LLMs are made of software, but they do not work like most software. They are probabilistic and mostly unpredictable. AI excels at tasks that are intensely human: writing, ideation, faking empathy. However, it struggles with tasks that machines typically excel at, such as repeating a process cons...Read more

"LLMs are made of software, but they do not work like most software. They are probabilistic and mostly unpredictable. AI excels at tasks that are intensely human: writing, ideation, faking empathy. However, it struggles with tasks that machines typically excel at, such as repeating a process consistently or performing complex calculations without assistance. This quasi-human weirdness is why the best users of AI are often managers and teachers, people who can understand the perspective of others and correct it when it is going wrong. Ultimately, even if you don’t want to anthropomorphize AI, they seem to increasingly want to anthropomorphize themselves." https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/on-the-necessity-of-a-sin

Sep 12

The importance of stupidity in scientific research. "We don’t do a good enough job of teaching our students how to be productively stupid – that is, if we don’t feel stupid it means we’re not really trying. One of the beautiful things about science is that it allows us to bumble along, getting it wr...Read more

The importance of stupidity in scientific research. "We don’t do a good enough job of teaching our students how to be productively stupid – that is, if we don’t feel stupid it means we’re not really trying. One of the beautiful things about science is that it allows us to bumble along, getting it wrong time after time, and feel perfectly fine as long as we learn something each time. No doubt, this can be difficult for students who are accustomed to getting the answers right." https://web.stanford.edu/~fukamit/schwartz-2008.pdf

Sep 10

"AI is not the root cause of cheating... People are exquisitely good at figuring out ways to avoid things they don’t like to do... So, they delegate some of that effort to the AI. In general, I am in favor of delegating tasks to AI... but education is different - the effort is the point." https://s...Read more

"AI is not the root cause of cheating... People are exquisitely good at figuring out ways to avoid things they don’t like to do... So, they delegate some of that effort to the AI. In general, I am in favor of delegating tasks to AI... but education is different - the effort is the point." https://substack.com/@oneusefulthing/p-148166655

Sep 4

A reminder to all students heading back to school - "Yo, syllabus, ya gotta do it, ya gotta read it!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tnlaokj1opA