rage your dream

reed | he/him | 25 | chem PhD (Y3) | main: @re-regulus

[wedarkacademia]

[itsclydebitches]

Something I don't think we talk enough about in discussions surrounding AI is the loss of perseverance.

I have a friend who works in education and he told me about how he was working with a small group of HS students to develop a new school sports chant. This was a very daunting task for the group, in large part because many had learning disabilities related to reading and writing, so coming up with a catchy, hard-hitting, probably rhyming, poetry-esque piece of collaborative writing felt like something outside of their skill range. But it wasn't! I knew that, he knew that, and he worked damn hard to convince the kids of that too. Even if the end result was terrible (by someone else's standards), we knew they had it in them to complete the piece and feel super proud of their creation.

Fast-forward a few days and he reports back that yes they have a chant now... but it's 99% AI. It was made by Chat-GPT. Once the kids realized they could just ask the bot to do the hard thing for them - and do it "better" than they (supposedly) ever could - that's the only route they were willing to take. It was either use Chat-GPT or don't do it at all. And I was just so devastated to hear this because Jesus Christ, struggling is important. Of course most 14-18 year olds aren't going to see the merit of that, let alone understand why that process (attempting something new and challenging) is more valuable than the end result (a "good" chant), but as adults we all have a responsibility to coach them through that messy process. Except that's become damn near impossible with an Instantly Do The Thing app in everyone's pocket. Yes, AI is fucking awful because of plagiarism and misinformation and the environmental impact, but it's also keeping people - particularly young people - from developing perseverance. It's not just important that you learn to write your own stuff because of intellectual agency, but because writing is hard and it's crucial that you learn how to persevere through doing hard things.

Write a shitty poem. Write an essay where half the textual 'evidence' doesn't track. Write an awkward as fuck email with an equally embarrassing typo. Every time you do you're not just developing that particular skill, you're also learning that you did something badly and the world didn't end. You can get through things! You can get through challenging things! Not everything in life has to be perfect but you know what? You'll only improve at the challenging stuff if you do a whole lot of it badly first. The ability to say, "I didn't think I could do that but I did it anyway. It's not great, but I did it," is SO IMPORTANT for developing confidence across the board, not just in these specific tasks.

Idk I'm just really worried about kids having to grow up in a world where (for a variety of reasons beyond just AI) they're not given the chance to struggle through new and challenging things like we used to.

[fixyourwritinghabits]

I think this is an incredibly important post for a lot of reasons. You have to write a bad book in order to learn how to do something. You have to suck at playing an instrument before you can improve.

Struggling is part of the process, and I've had a lot of people argue with me that it shouldn't be who fail to see the point. When you replace an composer with an AI music generator, an artist with an AI-generated image, or an author with an AI-generated fanfic, you are missing out on the critical, fundamental experiences humans need to learn and grow. You are robbing yourself of essential skills you need as a person.

AI is not like a calculator, or a synthesizer, or a prompt generator. It's not a tool to aid in your process of understanding or creating something. It is replacing your ability to learn things, and that is going to do so much damage if you let it.

[ducksarebloodthirstylittlebeasts]

when will zotero let me emoji react to paragraphs please i need this functionality

[reedoxrxn]

sent a 1500 word email to a student and ran a 11 hour synthesis in one day. i think i deserve an award.

[reedoxrxn]

i fear students forget that there are real human grad students on the other side of their regrade requests. we are not trying to ruin your life we are paid below minimum wage to do this, it’s not that deep 😭

[thoodleoo]

the parasocial relationship between you and the guy whose article you cite the most in your paper

[chaioverdose]

January so far in doodles 💛

[book-geek235]

Quantum Chemistry Day no1

[juliaxyn]

Study hard, for the well is deep, and our brains are shallow.

[reedoxrxn]

had to ask because i’m dense but i got into the lab i wanted 😭😭

[mariagoesmed]

favorite spot to study except for my room - it looks like a library but is actually a coffee shop

the holidays always kind of overwhelm me 🫠

[notesbyallie]

16.12.2023 // day 2/100 of productivity - I completely forgot about doing this 100 day challenge (oops) so I'm starting it again now since my exams are coming up in just a few months! I spent the day working through some of the harder topics and drew out some diagrams to help me understand them.

[summa-cum-latte]

12/07/2023

gloomy day in Budapest with lots of snow, rain, and slush. I lit an olive & sage candle to fight the malaise. I'm almost done with the footnotes.

[reedoxrxn]

straight As this quarter who am i

[reedoxrxn]

i’m an academic weapon (got a 90% on my quantum mechanics midterm)

[bananamiii-deactivated20250402]

sorry we applied an operator to your boyfriend. he's an eigenfunction of that operator so the operator returned his function but he's multiplied by a constant. yeah he has an eigenvalue now

[chiimi-png]

100 Days of Productivity [57/100]

🌿23/10/23🌿

Had an amazing time at the concert and woke up really late so I decided to take it easy for the day since I was feeling a bit under the weather today. Tried to do some note taking while in bed for my courses and managed to still tick off most things on my to-do list.

🎧 song of the day: Instant Crush (feat. Julian Casablancas) - Daft Punk