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Comment by auggierose | Hacker News Reader

You could probably make the same argument for search bar vs. peer-reviewed publications. Of course, the search bar (which is also AI, by the way) can help you to get to the peer-reviewed publications. But the same is true for ChatGPT. The problem is that ChatGPT sounds like presenting objective facts. But maybe the lesson here is that just because something sounds right, it isn't necessarily right, and that is something that should be taught in school. Of course, that undermines the function of school to produce obedient citizens.

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It also undermines the way schools work to teach kids. In order to not have to explain everything, almost all lessons are mostly teaching you some axioms, even if they really are disputed, or have caveats, etc. Good teachers make clear where there is an axiom, and where something is just being simplified or assumed for the sake of saving time.

I am a product of the German school system, I'd say I wasn't indoctrinated too much, so its not entirely broken, but with these new """tools""" maybe we need a reform anyways.

> In order to not have to explain everything, almost all lessons are mostly teaching you some axioms, even if they really are disputed, or have caveats, etc. Good teachers make clear where there is an axiom, and where something is just being simplified or assumed for the sake of saving time.

What exactly do you mean by the word “axiom” here?

Something assumed to be true without proof.

Think of it as one layer of abstraction above the model under discussion. Like a hyperparameter. In later years, students get taught the same topics again, with the hyperparameter tuned to be more realistic.

Something that is taught to be a self-evident or universally recognized truth

Does “self-evident” just mean that anyone who knows the sentence’s meaning can determine that it is true without any need to gather empirical data?

eg, All bachelors are unmarried.

eg, If X is a triangle, then X has three sides.

eg, the world is round or it is not the case that the world is round.

And does “universally recognized” just mean that most people believe the proposition is true?

In this context an axiom is a nonlogical axiom, in other words an assumption, one that is not to be questioned or discussed

Okay. So, in your original comment are you asserting that teachers are mostly telling students to believe propositions without giving any epistemic justification for those propositions?

Yes, as part of teaching one topic, teachers have to tell students to "not worry about" some other related topic and just take it as given fact, even when that's not technically true

> the search bar (which is also AI, by the way)

It's AI in the older sense of Machine Learning, not in the currently widespread sense of an LLM, which is the source of the problem that the author is discussing.

Face palm.

I had that same argument, the teacher who told me to not trust non peer reviewed articles ended up flooding her Facebook was with pro-brexit lies a decade later. Turns out critical thinking is not outsourcing your thinking to a third party, be it a peer reviewes journal, google search results, or chatgpt.

"not trust non peer reviewed articles" - this is such naive advice. It is not black and white, peer reviewed articles only increase chance that information included in article is legit because it was verified in some formal process. I wonder how many times people giving such simple advices mention how often peer reviewed articles are retracted or can't even be replicated and how this vary accross disciplines.

And, like all formal processes, it has been gamed. Many journals are full of high quality material; others are full of peer reviewed bullshit.

What is a 'pro brexit lie'?

Immigration will be reduced

We will be able to negotiate excellent trade deals outside the EU effortlessly

The EU need our trade so badly we will be able to negotiate a seamless trade deal with them

… and many others.

I think believing the first lie that conservatives would really reduce immigration is the product of trusting politicians too much.

Another faction of the pro-Brexiteers would think of the system in terms of a uniparty. The fundamentalists like Farage have no chance of getting elected as PM in the British system, though he did get an MP seat now.

Would things change if Farage were PM? I'm cynical, probably not.

There was a fundamental lie / delusion at the heart of the claim. The second thing a trade deal with another country implies "allow more of our nationals to migrate, and make it easier for them to come over". (The first thing is obviously: "let our products in".)

And this can be seen from the raw numbers too. Before brexit, the annual net migration to UK was about 300k. After brexit, the annual net migration to UK is ~700k.[0] (745k in 2022, 680k in 2023.) And quite a bit of that from the fresh trade partners.

The best way I have heard anyone describe the disaster that's Brexit was as "nostalgic self-immolation for the population who still dream of the Britain where faces were white, passports were blue, and the map was Imperial Pink."

0: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06...

interesting, thank you! I hadnt followed it when it happened.

£350m a week for the NHS

Indeed, you could apply the same argument to peer-reviewed articles, although at the moment they are still much (much!) more reliable than ChatGPT.

Ever heard of replication crisis?

Still better than ChatGPT.

A good way to learn this is to build something, wood working is an awesome way to quickly find out, looking, feeling and even someone taking a measurement isn’t enough, you need to take two :)

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