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Comment by throwaway7783 | Hacker News Reader

Why is it disrespectful? It is just a task. And it is almost an arms race b/w students and profs. Has always been (smuggling written notes into the exam etc)

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The student has a lot riding on the outcome of their exam. The teacher is making a black box of nondeterministic matrix multiplication at least partially responsible for that outcome. Sure, the AI isn't the one grading, but it is deciding which questions and follow up questions to ask.

Let me ask, how do you generally feel when you contact customer service about something and you get an AI chatbot? Now imagine the chatbot is responsible for whether you pass the course.

Talking to a disembodied inhuman voice can be disconcerting and produce anxiety in a way that wouldn’t be true communicating to a live human instructor.

Adding this as an additional optional tool, though, is an excellent idea.

Unless class sizes are astronomical, it's absurd to pay US tuition all to have a lazy professor who automates even the most human components of the education you're getting for that price.

If the class cost me $50? Then sure, use Dr. Slop to examine my knowledge. But this professor's school charges them $90,000 a year and over $200k to get an MBA? Hell no!

Yes.

At that point what’s the value add over using YouTube videos and ChatGPT on your own?

The certificate is the value as long as everyone trust it actually certifies what it says is certified. If a diploma can be had for promoting ChatGPT or Gemini a couple dozen times a year, trust in what it certifies should be rapidly eroding and universities should be scared because what you suggest is actually rational.

I suspect it’s already started with the declining enrollment numbers in recent years.

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