I learn the same way, and I have to say, learning with LLMs now has been a very rewarding and validating experience. I struggled with the traditional school system my whole academic career, and I learn in the same way you describe. These days, I can start at the top high-level concepts and with the help of a competent LLM drill down as far as I need to from there.
These same questions could be asked about self driving cars, but they've been shown to be consistently safer drivers than humans. If this guy is getting consistently better results from ai+human than it is from just humans, what would it matter if the former results in errors given the latter results in more and costs more?
If the cars weren't considerably safer drivers than humans they wouldn't be allowed on the road. There isn't as much regulation blocking deploying this healthcare solution... until those errors actually start costing hospitals money from malpractice lawsuits (or not), we don't know whether it will be allowed to remain in use.
You can't compare an LLM output with a self driven car. That's the flaw of using the term AI for everything, it brings two completely different technologies to an artificial level ground.
TFA's while point is that there is no easy way to tell if LLM output is correct or not. Driving mistakes provide instant feedback if the output of whatever AI is driving is correct or not. Bad comparison.
Many of the things that LLMs will output can be validated in a feedback loop, e.g., programming. It's easy to validate the generated code with a compiler, unit tests, etc. LLMs will excel in processes that can provide a validating feedback loop.
I love how everyone thinks software is easy to validate now. Like seriously, do you have any awareness at all about how much is invested in testing software by the likes of Microsoft, the game studios, and any other serious producers of software? It's a lot, and they still release buggy code.
Spending on education has increased over the last couple decades, not decreased. Outcomes, however, have gotten worse. You're entire premise is flawed.
It certainly has increased. The question isn't whether the increase is enough, but rather if the destination of the funds is the right location.
There's also an issue with home life that heavily impacts educational outcome.
My own school district spent a fortune making a palace for the district admin. Meanwhile, the public schools are falling apart with the kids packed in like sardines. They've literally started adding cheap prefab trailers to the school grounds to accommodate.
This is America, we have perfected the art of spending more to get less. That doesn't mean cuts to education aren't happening. See also: the entire healthcare system.
I specifically mentioned: teachers paying for supplies out of their own pockets, underpaying teachers, not investing in safe teaching environments, increased litigation, demonizing the profession, increased political targeting, and lack of teacher agency in disciplining students.
Fact is when I look at my district, over the last decade we've had to do more with less, and I don't know a single teacher who can say the opposite. So it is true we are spending more overall, it's not true we aren't cutting education.
In my school district, the only new facilities being built are charter schools. We have unlimited funds, it seems, to send to these private organizations but not enough funds to build or expand a public school or hire teachers/aids.
Some of my kids school aids have been homeless because the pay isn't high enough. The aids and teacher all work second jobs.
> Also, charter schools are also public, not private.
Charter schools are funded by the public district issuing the charter, but can be any of public, private non-profit, or private for-profit.
They are public in the sense of being governed by the rules (with exceptions provided in the charter, but which exceptions are allowed is also part of the rules) applicable to the public system, which they form part of, but they aren't necessarily public entities.
> Per internet charter schools get 20-36% less funding per child than traditional public (district) schools.
The public school system is much larger and has a longer tail to support than charter schools. Larger organizations require more overhead as a percentage of their operating budget. Public schools also have to support every student in the community no matter how high it costs, unlike charter schools, which support a lower proportion of them. Both factors manifest as higher per-student costs if you just average it all out.
There's a parallel to private insurance which can kick out the sickest individuals, and a public option which must take everyone. Obviously the latter is more expensive to operate, so private insurance prefers dealing with the former, leaving the public to cover everyone else at taxpayer expense.
> Also, charter schools are also public, not private.
OP said "to send to these private organizations" not that charter schools are private schools. While charter schools are public, many charter schools are run by private organizations.
Charter schools are publicly funded and privately operated. That's what I mean by private.
And the per child payment is less because charter schools are experts at keeping children with disabilities out of their facilities. They have to accept them, but they can deny entry if they don't, for example, employ special ed teachers, therapists, etc.
Public schools have to provide those services. They have to accept all children.
I've been slogging through Blood Meridian for the past couple of months, only taking little sips of content here and there, but it finally clicked for me last night and I'm fully engaged with it. And man was it worth the effort. The way he paints scenes with just the right amount of words is pretty amazing. I'd love to see this book adapted onto film.
There was that Friends episode where Joey got halfway through Little Women thinking "Jo" was a guy and he had to start over. Blood Meridian was kinda like that where I realized I had lost track of what was happening in a chapter, who was killing who for what reason, and had to backtrack. So yeah the book makes you feel like Joey on Friends.
Maybe this is sacrilege but I find audiobooks help for this because the narrator just keeps going with little effort on my part. Even if I miss things it’s okay, and getting through it helps get into it.
My friend who recommended it to me told me the best way to consume it was via audiobook even though he prefers to read. He said it's the one book he prefers that way.
Blood Meridian is one of the few books where I reached the end and then just started again right from the beginning. It's probably the book I've read the most amount of times and each re-read still manages to amaze me.
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