I teach languages at the college level. Students who seek "help" from side-by-side translations think this way, too. "I'm just using the translation to check my work; the translation I produced is still mine." Then you show them a passage they haven't read before, and you deny them the use of a translation, and suddenly they have no idea how to proceed -- or their translation is horrendous, far far worse than the one they "produced" with the help of the translation.
Some of these students are dishonest. Many aren't. Many genuinely believe the work they submit is their own, that they really did do the work, and that they're learning the languages. It isn't, they didn't, and they aren't.
People are quite poor at this kind of attribution, especially when they're already cognitively overloaded. They forget sources. They mistake others' ideas for their own. So your model of intention, and your distinction between those who wish to learn and those who pose, don't work. The people most inclined to seek the assistance that these tools seem to offer are the ones least capable of using them responsibly or recognizing the consequences of their use.
These tools are a guaranteed path to brain rot and an obstacle to real, actual study and learning, which require struggle without access to easy answers.
> Some of these students are dishonest. Many aren't.
If they are using LLMs to deliver final work they are all posers. Some are aware of it, many aren't.
> Many genuinely believe the work they submit is their own, that they really did do the work, and that they're learning the languages. It isn't, they didn't, and they aren't.
But I'm talking about a very specific intentionality in using LLMs which is to "help us understand what's missing in our understanding of the problem, if our solution is plausible and how we could verify it".
My model of intention and the distinction relies on that. You have a great opportunity to show your students that LLMs aren't designed to be used like that, as a proxy for yourself. After all, it's not realistic to think we can forbid students to use LLMs, better to try to incentivise the development of a healthy relationship with it.
Also, LLMs aren't a panacea. Maybe in learning languages you should stay away from it, although I'd be cautious to make this conclusion, but it doesn't mean LLMs are universally bad for learning.
In any case, if you don't use LLMs as a guide but a proxy then sure it's a guaranteed path to brain rot. But just as a knife can be used to both heal and kill, an LLM can be used to learn and to fake. The distinction lies in knowing yourself, which is a constant process.
> You have a great opportunity to show your students that LLMs aren't designed to be used like that, as a proxy for yourself. After all, it's not realistic to think we can forbid students to use LLMs, better to try to incentivise the development of a healthy relationship with it.
LLM use is the absolute last thing I want to discuss with students. I can think of few worse ways I could spend my limited time with them.
Educators can, should, and must forbid students from using tools that do their work for them -- i.e. cheating.
LLMs are always bad for learning. Always. They offload and bypass mental work.
>Some of these students are dishonest. Many aren't. Many genuinely believe the work they submit is their own, that they really did do the work, and that they're learning the languages. It isn't, they didn't, and they aren't.
People are quite poor at this kind of attribution, especially when they're already cognitively overloaded. They forget sources. They mistake others' ideas for their own.
This attitude is common not only among students, in my experience many people behave this way.
I also see some parallels to LLM hallucinations..