this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2026
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Fuck AI
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A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
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I've heard much of the same from my friends who teach middle and high schoolers: most alarmingly that they can put information up on the board, ask a question about it, and the students don't even connect that the answer is already in front of their eyes.
And sadly, a very common question they get is: "If AI can do this for me, why do I need to learn it in the first place?"
The worst part is that, in the short-term, the only recourse people have is suing social media and LLM companies, who are awash in cash and happy to settle, or throw their weight behind age verification, which in its various forms poses a security risk. Parents, clearly, are parking their kids in front of screens and unwilling to parent, so that's not something you can depend upon.
I'm just glad I never procreated, but this problem is going to affect us all when these kids try to enter the work force and can't actually do anything.
Reminds me a lot of teachers lying that we wouldn't have calculators with us at all times.
Valid point: One needs to know how arithmetic works in order to get a computer/calculator to do it for you. This is fair; I use CAD software to design furniture, I do it parametrically, I have to solve problems like "if the overall width of the table top is 24 inches, the top overhangs by two inches all the way around, and the legs are an inch and a half wide, how long does the apron board between the legs need to be? And how long do I cut the board to add 3/4" long tenons?" I have to keep order of operations in mind there. But I write the expression and allow the computer to solve it.
Also valid point: I haven't once done long division since middle school, because guess what? I have machines for that. I have had use for the concept of quotients and remainders...but I had to learn for myself how to get computers to calculate them using modulo operators. 5 / 2 = 2, 5 % 2 = 1. five divided by two is two remainder one. The algorithm of drawing the sideways L and putting one number under it and the other number to the left of it and then doing long division is not something I needed an entire semester of practice doing. You can't convince me that was designed for my benefit, that was designed to keep me quiet.
Modern school is framed largely as a series of assignments one needs to get good grades in in order to be allowed to do something. A high school diploma is required to...practically be a citizen. "You have to get a good grade on this essay because it's required for you to pass this class, which is required for you to graduate and get your diploma that we are legally required to force you to get."
Children aren't stupid, they know what bullshit is and they don't like having their time wasted anymore than adults do. Children as a demographic have dozens of millennia of experience growing up into adults, they've been playing house and playing job since the invention of houses and jobs, they played cave and played hunt before that. They can feel when school isn't like house or job and won't help them do house or job. And it's gotten to the point where that describes most of school, because they focus more on the difficulty of a class or test or curriculum than its usefulness.
There's a lot more to life than house and job and learning how to learn is the most important thing you can get from grade school.
Explain to me how a decade of busywork teaches children how to learn.
It doesn't.
It's a consequence of government departments and school administration lacking knowledge of pedagogy forcing underpaid and overworked educators to teach their pupils how to pass standardized tests. It's a consequence of a cultural and societal de-prioritization and outright disdain for critical thinking.
It's a consequence of shifting the focus away from learning how to learn and towards learning how to work, a focus that has clearly impacted your view of education. You were failed by a system that was designed to fail you.
It teaches them to be good employees.
It clearly teaches children how to learn in a way that serves the ruling class: uncuriously, only on command, and not beyond specifications.