oh boy what happened to this blog

Uhh hey, it's been a bit since I've written here. I wanted to get back into the groove of writing blog posts. I'm less optimistic about it this time, mainly given the fact that the aperiodness with which I post these has a period -.-.

Anyway, with the ending of this school year, I've been inclined to reflect a bit on how I've used LLMs in my education (and why I've decided to abandon them entirely).

better safe than sorry

Look, generative AI like this has been around for a bit (more time than it took for tech bros to latch onto them), but we've only really started to see the technology break into the public zeitgeist thanks to advancements in computing power (thanks Moore's law). Because of this recent breakout, the psychological consequences of frequent use and reliance are not concrete yet (I mean, the true consequences of long-term reliance on LLMs hasn't started to take effect yet). It would be best to err on the side of caution for something as important as one's education, given the obvious consequences that overreliance brings.

LLM denial

facing the facts or facing the fiction depending on how im feeling

I've always felt inclined to call LLMs a "nothing-burger technology that'll die out in the next couple of years", but I don't really feel prepared to face the fact that I'm wrong. This kind of technological development is not something that my selective-luddite self wants to happen. It elevates convenience in the worst way possible, taking away the value of the mental toil you put into your work rather than the more menial side of the task at hand. It sounds dull, working a creative job like programming while executives breath down your neck with technologies that only take away the spiritual fulfillment of the work that you're doing. That may be a bit melodramatic, but it paints a rough picture of the boring dystopia that I fear LLMs contributing to.

Roping back to Education

time to reign in my scatterbrain

The main thing that you should take from the previous paragraph concerning the title of this blog is that removing mental effort in a work makes it unfulfilling and, in the case of education, ineffective. Sure, I may be able to pass a test through asking an LLM to generate content for me, but the actual content absorption is a lot less effective than, say, reading through a textbook exhaustively. The removal of mental effort from a learning experience makes that learning experience much less effective, which is the main reason why I'm ditching the little use of LLMs that I had.

okay bye hopefully a more fun technical one out soon