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Comment by corytheboyd | Hacker News Reader

A take I haven't heard yet that isn't just "chat robots bad":

It's not like the output of a teenager means anything, the whole point is that they activate their brain to critical thinking and learning. The exercise of making ChatGPT output look convincing, and familiarizing yourself with that output to defend it if questioned, is still a learning exercise. It looks different, but it's honestly just as impressive as them writing about what Hamlet was thinking when his dad died or whatever the fuck that was about.

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>critical thinking and learning

If my experience with essays means anything is that to receive a good grade you need to regurgitate the teacher pet causes using the most flowery language possible. No thinking involved.

It's not like business is any different... in which case it's just as easy to call that a sign of intelligence, depends on how you look at it

I was pretty surprised to discover that no-one in business gives a fuck if you cite your sources. On the rare occasions when you really need to, they also don't care if you use any kind of special formatting for it, and might even find it weird and off-putting if you did.

They also don't mind if you "cheat" (seek extensive help on a piece of work without asking if that's OK first, or "steal" something that already exists). Usually, they prefer you do. Results matter, and maybe not breaking the law. Beyond that, nobody cares.

I've also not once used all that business letter-formatting crap we wasted so very much time on in elementary school. WTF.

Yeah I remember fretting so much over things like MLA, but then you get a job and your bosses boss can't seem to figure out the complex landscape of their/there/they're... preeeettyyy frustrating

It's handy to know if you go into academia, I guess, but I'm not quite sure why we're teaching specifically a citation format that's only useful in some fields, and only if you're an academic. If we must teach one, it'd be nice if it was something more intuitive and less fiddly, like Chicago Style. Still not broadly useful, but at least it's not, you know, insane like MLA is.

Really seems like something that could be left out until undergrad. Just give enough info that a reasonable person could find your source easily, and keep the format consistent and simple in each paper. That's all anyone cares about outside academia, in the rare cases they care about citations at all.

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