CharonY

I am not too worried about specific exercises, or skills. What worries we most is the decline in fundamentals, which to me ultimately boils down to reading, or perhaps in a more abstract sense, information comprehension. In my mind, so far other media (video, audio) are not as well suited to transmit complex information. The only exception I can think of are oral traditions. However, cultures who used those have specialized Knowledge Keepers with highly focused training to retaining, contextualizing and transmitting information. It would be the opposite of how it is used in modern times.

When I learned that (not today) I also learned about the abuse Judy Garland suffered starting as a child actor (including groping and repeated solicitation for sex from executives). Between asbestos and the abuse stories, one might start to think that Hollywood might not have been a healthy environment, especially for kids.

An issue is that AI is not a human mind. It does not think like one and it mostly simulates. Avi Loeb has dubbed it "Alien Intelligence" to make the distinction.

There are part of curricula already. However, I do feel that there is a disconnect how some educators and especially administrators frame it and how it affects learning in practice. Essentially there is an emphasis on academic misconduct and plagiarism to counter the use for entirely AI-generated works. And then promoting beneficial uses. Yet quite clearly, we can see that it has little (positive) impact. That is already the case, though oral is problematic for large classes and usually has a high level of complaints regarding subjectivity. Furthermore, there is strong administrative push to let students pass, which is a long-standing problem. Essentially if too many students fail, the assumption is that the prof is at fault, rather a decline in learning abilities. This has led to at least a decade of grade inflation. These are already being done, but frequently if you poke them for more details (see a) we can see massive gaps. Together with a system that disincentivizes failing students (largely because of tuition) and the fact that students fail at building basic skills, there is not a lot material to work with. The easiest ways for educators is to go with the flow and we are already seeing that in high schools and increasingly at universities. Thus, the overall issue here is how do we disincentivize the easy ways of using AI and promote the better ones. Students frequently do not see the benefit in wasting their valuable time on social media by doing homework or exercises.

I had a discussion with younger students and one of the things that they noted is that they feel unequipped to navigate the whole social media and now AI landscape as they lack the knowledge gained compared to folks who grew up in the "before-times". What is happening now is the opposite. Quality of students goes down, number of folks going through the system increases. Few, if any imagine being able to outperform AI.

it is mostly an issue for online exams (there is a big push towards online learning, due to a) ability to reach more folks but also b) to save money. Administration has discouraged in-class work and want profs to provide a more interactive experience. As such lengthier writing assignments (for credit) have become take-home assignments. Short-answer tests are still in class most of the time. But not only on the usability side, whole purposes change. Facebook marketed itself original as a privacy-driven sharing platform when myspace was relevant. Once they got a monopoly their whole purpose was to extract and sell client information. I have no doubt that this will also influence AI implementation. What is also somewhat troubling to me is that folks cannot even predict the strategic risk or benefit of AI or even AGI. Maybe I am reading the wrong articles but there is enough wandwaving there to power the whole endeavour via wind energy. I am also curious about how efficient the regulations are going to be. Parts of EU do have stronger privacy laws, but often legislation fails to keep up with tech.

Coercion by definition is caused by some sort of power differential, and factors pertaining to can include age, but also threats or use of force. So as you mentioned, there is no age that immunizes against that. But the point regarding age is that clearly folks are more susceptible and less powerful the younger they are. Again, the differential in power is what is relevant. What in this spectrum is considered appropriate will be up to society to decide. The concept of coercion and that it is inappropriate in Western societies is a rather recent development, for example. Legal age of consent have varied a fair bit as have societal attitudes. Up until very recently a power differential between men and women was assumed to be the norm and there have been long struggles to address that, or to move the scale back towards it. AFAIK there is no universal standard that one could simply apply, even within a given society. That would be a very pragmatic criterion, for sure.

I agree on that, the issue though is that it is an universal tool and while it can help you to get deeper into things, it can also be used to bypass the elements that take effort. Often, this is a good thing, but the the issue arises if the bypassed skill is actually a fundamental one. Most students write reports from articles without even reading summaries. Others, are more active, and have for example created an audio summary, that they listen to while they are doing other things. While the latter is at least somewhat creative, it is also ineffective and in-person neither group is really able to hold a normal discussion on the topic that they were supposed to write and think about. Personally, I think it boils down to lack of basic reading and comprehension skills and while I think there is a way where AI can assist in that, I think on balance, folks will choose the easy way. It like having a tool that at the same time invites you to work out or to relax and enjoy yourself. Given the chance most folks will do the latter and I wonder how we can convince folks to choose the former. That is for sure, but similarly to social media I still think that it shouldn't be up to the companies to decide how it is implemented. Because another thing is for sure, they do not have the betterment of mankind in mind. That is a very interesting viewpoint and makes sense from a corporate viewpoint. I am reminded of studies among children and young adults, where the majority have indicated that social media has been a detriment to their mental health and that they see it generally as a bad thing. At the same time, the overwhelming majority won't or is unable to stop. When I read those studies, I was reminded of typical addict behaviour. I am not sure why you think we won't lose scientists or philosophers. There is a pathway to that actually. In academia (where most of the research is happening), focus on vocational aspects and certificates rather than quality of education. That opens the way to reduce faculty and replace with sessionals with AI support. Then, rather than broad funding of research, focus narrowly on priority areas and train AI to address them. Over time, areas where AIs are still weak or yield poor results (there are molecular biological areas with huge gaps where, from all I have read, AI is massively underperforming), will be considered non-priority. That shift will save millions if not billions, which is what most folks will focus on. The role of scientists will be limited to what probably is already starting to be the case with senior devs (i.e. agential supervision rather than leading research groups). There will other AIs on top of those. Students will lack the boost to climb to the first set of shoulders. Considering how the US government is wielding AI, do you really think that there will be short-term benefits beyond boosting the AI-economy?

Inspired by a comment from StringJunky and to avoid derailing a thread further, I started this topic to explore the idea how much of the challenges of AI is real and how much of that is just an outdated viewpoint. SJ mentioned that calculators and their introduction has likely led to some reduction in arithmetic abilities. The rise of wikipedia and search engines have reduced the ability of folks to look for obscure sources, especially in libraries to some degree. But while they have reduced certain skills and abilities, they enabled other, and often more efficient approaches. I.e. the much feared loss of overall competency did not manifest, rather it resulted in a shifts of abilities. But from an academic/educational viewpoint, AI feels different and I have struggled for a bit in figuring out whether my view is just old-fashioned, or whether I am looking at a valid problem. I will preface that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated an already ongoing decline in academic abilities in young folks almost world-wide. My personal opinion is that decline in literacy is a key element, as this skill affects almost all higher academic abilities. Now, in other threads we have explored uses of AI, and how it could for example be a personalized tutor. At this point most leading LLMs tend to be decent in undergrad-level topics. However, it does not seem that it is used as such. Rather, most students use it to bypass the learning process entirely (similar to the example of AI writing emails to be read by AI). Once they arrive at Uni, many struggle with basic comprehension, and as a consequence, it is very difficult to teach advanced concepts that build on simpler ones. They struggle to see connection between those elements and if they memorize advanced concepts, they cannot use it to extrapolate ideas from them. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they often also struggle to explain what their (likely AI-generated) reports actually mean. We are thus again at a point, where tools seem to make certain skills obsolete. The issue I am having is that the skills in this case are not specialized, but very fundamental how we think. Folks have trouble reading, and there is little evidence that modes of media consumption (e.g., videos) can fill that gap (most studies point to the opposite). Folks struggle with connecting ideas and synthesize information and increasingly offload it to software. But without that ability, I do not know how higher learning is possible. In short, if we offload all that mental tasks that, IMO ultimately makes us human, what else do we have left? Where is the space that the human mind still can prosper? Again, I do think that there are scenarios where AI is being used to better one's mind. But the fact that the incentive is to offload, most folks will. And if the system is geared towards that what would be a possible best case scenario? I could imagine regulations and other means to reign in AI for certain uses, though our track record in regulating tech has been abysmal at best. In short, I would like to discuss whether my perspective is just too skewed and missing elements and if so, which are those?

No doubt someone made a lot of money promising massive gains in efficiency using their tech.

Welcome to my world. For a while now I don't think that any of my students on the undergrad level have been reading the assigned material (and it is getting doubtful for grads, too). I can see who is accessing free open source books on the course website and in a class of about 60 I get single-digits of folks reading. The books that are available at the library as part of the course have not been accessed for years now. Yep, and we have AI writing fake news and there is the proposal to use AI to flag those. We are actively removing humans from all human endeavors.

Ethnicity is mostly associated with differences in measles vaccination uptakes. But I doubt that there are strong correlations in terms of health outcomes based on ethnicity alone. Ethnicity is often a proxy for other parameters, depending on the population you are looking at. These can include elements such as nutrition, health care, socio-economic status and so on. AFAIK we are unable to reliably predict likely measles outcome in any individual. The frequency of severe outcomes (such as hospitalization) especially in developed countries can vary a lot. The high presence of vaccinated folks tend to result in small infection hot spots which skews statistics a bit. But from the large outbreaks in recent years we can expect a rate of around 20% of hospitalizations among <5 year olds. Breakthrough infections (i.e. infections of vaccinated or partially vaccinated folks) tend to be much less likely to develop serious symptoms.

In a practical sense, laws are kind of a general consensus that reflects that current societal situation. But given that this thread was a spin-off from an Epstein thread, I think it is fair to assume that at least the initial idea was talking about it in an American-Western context. But you are right that this topic can and has been approached from a variety of angles and contexts and I appreciate your comment in that regard. With the risk of falling into the trope of overapplying simplified concepts, this seems a very common thread in many societies and is deeply rooted in patrilineal (and thus patriarchial) societies, resulting in, to some degree, commodification of women. Interestingly, socioeconomic shifts as a consequence of the industrial revolution has changed this custom in Europe. However, as you mentioned, they are practiced elsewhere in a variety of forms, ranging from more symbolic to creating extreme economic pressures on families. One should also not overlook that religious elements also play a role, though there are likely a lot of intersections with other customs (including dowries). It should also be noted that in many cultures, there is a difference between boys and girls when it comes to experiencing their sexuality. In part there is of course the risk of pregnancy, but there are also for example feminist theories out there that look into power structures of societies as an important element.

That is an entirely different conversation and is a matter of individual growth and maturity. It has nothing to do with either the original OP and also significantly veers of from the topic of the split, which seemed to reference abuse related to age. There, the other elements, such as coercion, prostitution, trafficking, consent and other things are more relevant.

Especially considering how early the abuse started, and from the father, no less. Incidentally, this part of the discussion actually highlights why victims of abuse frequently do not report abuse to authorities. They have to be near perfect before being taken seriously. Any other behaviour will be as evidence that the abuse was not real. That is why abusers frequently target kids from difficult backgrounds.

Also regarding Tesla's attempt there is some recent data and it doesn't look good. ElectrekTesla 'Robotaxi' adds 5 more crashes in Austin in a month...Tesla has reported five new crashes involving its “Robotaxi” fleet in Austin, Texas, bringing the total to 14 incidents since... So at least for now the pivot to an AI/Robotic rather than car company doesn't really bear fruit.

I think sexual maturity might be better suited for a different thread. I will also say that this questions is only of limited relevance here. The issue is not that a teenager had sex, but rather that a much older and more powerful adult has coerced them to that. Of course, there is no universal rule for appropriateness of such interactions, but modern laws as well as morality have coalesced around key aspects of consent, ability to consent and maturity, disparity in maturity between partners and power imbalance (and potentially more aspects that elude me right now).

In addition, folks may want contradictory things, say higher levels of governmental services as well as a massive reduction in taxes. Or voting for/against things that are not real, such as chemtrails. Folks that equate compromise (or a shared reality) with autocracy are, IMO, most susceptible to an authoritarianism. The reason being that democratic system are held accountable against certain standards, whereas an autocrat can support a false reality (e.g., sports are overrun with transgender folks) and also make contradictory promises. Such as using tariffs to lower taxes. They are aware that they are not going to be tested against reality, as their plan is to consolidate power to such a degree that they will be in place regardless if they actually are improving things for the people. Oh yes, the "some bad laws" included trying to dismantle the judiciary, which of course is a hallmark of authoritarianism. But of course the issue of banning less than a percent of the population in certain sports is pretty much of equal importance to having some sort of functioning democracy. OP basically says that systems that are in the way authoritarianism are the real authoritarians.

The issue with AI and perhaps data availability on the internet in general is that many students assume that all necessary facts are out there and that is a waste of time to learn them in the first place. The issue is that as a consequence they lack a very basic foundation to create some level of understanding. Some of the most frequent issues we see among students is that tend to fail at synthesis, i.e., connecting isolated facts. Offloading that further, obviously won't help. It is like having an electric piano that plays scales on its own and wondering why one doesn't get better at playing the instrument. The fact that OP starts with a summary rather than reading the actual document as first task show the erosion of basic skills. AI could be used to test ones comprehension after reading, for example, but a small minority of students is doing that (usually those that are top students either way).

Perhaps more like 2nd vs 1st degree murder, as manslaughter generally doesn't require intent. In this case, the intent is clear, abuse of vulnerable kids. And in terms of intent, there is little to believe that Epstein had any moral red line. While not verified, lawmakers have alluded to at least mentioning of 10 and 9 year olds.

This is clearly not the case. For starters, in an documentary you are not under oath. It also seems that you have either watched a different doc than I did, or at least with a different lens. That being said, This is probably the strangest take and would only make sense if you have not been exposed to the Epstein case by any media, which would suggest an imbalance between the conviction regarding the facts of the case and the available information. For starters, you are aware that Epstein was indicted in 2019 again? Here is a press release (bolded by me): As you have been so keen on using the prior indictment as a defense of Epstein (which were criticized, though not overturned by an internal DOJ investigation), what do you make of those new indictments?

This is silly. You are basically saying that any compromise is authoritarian. Living in a society, heck, even just being a family requires compromise. According to your logic, there would only be two ways of living freely: 1) living entirely alone, abolishing the need for compromise, or 2) having a stratified society where everyone's decision fully align.

In a landmark action, the Trump administration has decisively erased the challenge of climate change by using the presidential powers of "nuh-uh". I wished I was making it up but one of the argument is that CO2 is actually good, plants use it. There is also the issue is that depending on landscape and crop other factors are more limiting than CO2, but that is entirely beside the point. It is pretty much the same argument against global warming by pointing out that winters exist. After all, my fridge is cold, so what is everyone so afraid about? So please excuse me, while I go huff some asbestos in preparation for a refreshing sewage bath. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/climate/trump-epa-greenhouse-gases-climate-change.html?unlocked_article_code=1.LlA.9x5h.aUEJwaIwn1jf&smid=url-share Clearly, the administration seeks to overwrite reality and, by extension, scientific consensus on many levels. This, obviously will have massive implications, especially as research is highly dependent on government funding. So my broader question is really is there a way to maintain scientific integrity in such an environment?

Well basic capitalist economics dictates basically that if all you have is hard work, you are already a loser in the system (Labour is inherently constrained at the individual level, but capital has no such upper bound on leverage.). They should amend that morals are a further constraint. I wasn't aware of that term. There is an acronym (well, initialism) for everything, isn't there?

In addition, the power differential should not be overlooked. It is not like the situation is one of free, well-informed and consensual interaction. An important element of this form of abuse is the normalization of the situation, establishing authority and influence over the victims actions and decisions and perspectives. It is a well-established methodology in cults and cult-like organizations.