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Comment by mrcartmeneses | Hacker News Reader

It’s something reflected in the conversations I have with my academic friends. I’m told that every essay is written in the same “voice” and that although they are usually a simulacra of an academic paper, they say nothing. The sad part comes when we reflect that these students are not learning the deep thinking skills that comes with academic writing

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There are two views of writing: one, as the production of a literary artifact that has value in its own right and stands alone as the embodiment of a complex idea itself; on the other hand, as a process and tool for thought, where the literary artifact is merely meant to represent the cognitive work that went into its production. From the latter perspective, the bulk of the value is not derived from the output of the process of writing, but rather from the understanding and insight that was gained during its production - "it's the journey, not the destination".

With generative AI we are now shortcutting directly to the destination while eliding all the knowledge and understanding we are supposed to be gaining on the way. It's deemed sufficient to merely produce and exchange the symbols of understanding without needing to possess any real underlying wisdom (the first view above), because it's through the exchange of these abstract symbols, irrespective of whether or not there is anything behind them, that we can play and win certain social games.

This is merely the natural continuation of trends that began during the dawn of the Internet era, when we started to consider pixels on a screen an accurate map of reality.

Then they’re using gen ai wrong. You can dump your research into the context window and ask it to outline the material. What you get out is a well organized story with a beginning middle and end, incorporating all relevant concepts from the research. You can then fill in with the details based on your research. Gen ai can be used to help students think and write more clearly.

They’re going to use it. Give them the training and guidance to use it correctly.

I have a related anecdote. When I grew up, we had page and/or word requirements on essays. I was always under the requirement after I wrote everything I needed to, so I learned to pad my writing to hit the requirement.

Terse prose was a "lost art" even in my generation (millenial-ish) and I'm not surprised that it has gotten worse.

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