Harvard's New Computer Science Teacher Is a Chatbot 39
Starting this fall, students enrolled in Computer Science 50: Introduction to Computer Science (CS50) will be encouraged to use AI to help them debug code, give feedback on their designs, and answer individual questions about error messages and unfamiliar lines of code. PCMag reports: "Our own hope is that, through AI, we can eventually approximate a 1:1 teacher [to] student ratio for every student in CS50, as by providing them with software-based tools that, 24/7, can support their learning at a pace and in a style that works best for them individually," says CS50 professor David J. Malan, as reported by The Harvard Crimson. It's a swift turnaround from the last school year: Harvard did not have an AI policy at the end of the fall 2022 semester.
The new approach will not use ChatGPT or GitHub Copilot, both of which are popular among programmers. Malan says the tools are "currently too helpful." Instead, Harvard has developed its own large language model, a "CS50 bot" that will be "similar in spirit," but will focus on "leading students toward an answer rather than handing it to them," he says. CS50 is also available for non-Harvard students to take on the online platform edX.
The new AI policy will extend to the edX version. "Even if you are not a student at Harvard, you are welcome to "take" this course for free by working your way through the course's eleven weeks of material," says the site. Teachers at other institutions can also license the material for their own courses. "Providing support that's tailored to students' specific questions has long been a challenge at scale via edX and OpenCourseWare more generally, with so many students online, so these features will benefit students both on campus and off," Malan says.
The new approach will not use ChatGPT or GitHub Copilot, both of which are popular among programmers. Malan says the tools are "currently too helpful." Instead, Harvard has developed its own large language model, a "CS50 bot" that will be "similar in spirit," but will focus on "leading students toward an answer rather than handing it to them," he says. CS50 is also available for non-Harvard students to take on the online platform edX.
The new AI policy will extend to the edX version. "Even if you are not a student at Harvard, you are welcome to "take" this course for free by working your way through the course's eleven weeks of material," says the site. Teachers at other institutions can also license the material for their own courses. "Providing support that's tailored to students' specific questions has long been a challenge at scale via edX and OpenCourseWare more generally, with so many students online, so these features will benefit students both on campus and off," Malan says.
for the price of Harvard need to real staff not an (Score:3)
for the price of Harvard need to real staff not an bot.
Re:for the price of Harvard need to real staff not (Score:4, Interesting)
My initial gut reaction was the same, but then I realized...
No wait, with these fancy ass schools, you're NOT paying for an education, you're paying for prestige.
And this is "the first" AI class. So the initial people to take it, there will be tons of hype and buzz and curiosity. Its literally (other than tuition cost) free publicity and marketing for each and every one of those students, putting them in the front-line for a future career simply because they were the first to participate in the experiment and startups will be "curious" and want to hire them.
Sounds like an actual damn good investment to me!
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"And this is "the first" AI class."
It's not an AI class at all, it is their introductory course, presumably one they've taught for a long time.
"Sounds like an actual damn good investment to me!"
Reading comprehension would correct that problem.
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Naa, the bean-counters to not understand quality. As long as it is cheaper, they go for it. I guess that was it for CS50 being of any use.
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This is the end-result of the MBA worship that's percolated throughout the economy, the business world, and now even the schools. There is nothing more sacred that profit. And the best way to create more profit is to lower up-front costs, regardless of the effect that has on expected quality. A few more decades of this, and if we weren't already headed for the brink, they'd manage to push us over one anyway.
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Indeed.
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for the price of Harvard need to real staff not an bot.
Harvard's faculty knew they were in deep shit when the administrators walked into the meeting with "Go Away, or I'll replace you with a very small shell script" t-shirts.
decline of Harvard (Score:5, Interesting)
I've concluded that Harvard's CS program has some meaure of bullshit in it. As I've noted elsewhere, the intro CS50 course is horrible. (I examined all weeks in it.) They spend one week each on data structure and on algorithms. The auxiliary material on Python is weak too. I know of community colleges that do a better job on intro CS. Shame on you Harvard. Shame on you.
The chatbot assist is a weak way to orient beginning students, who need human intuition to help figure out how to guide them. A bot system under Harvard tuition rates is so much a cheat of the students. Of course, the bots can be made DEI compatible, so it's not all bad (/s).
Re:decline of Harvard (Score:4, Interesting)
Harvard pulls in professors who are absolutely tops in their research fields. They are SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS RECRUITED TO MAINTAIN A REPUTATION, NOT TEACHERS. You want good teaching? Really good quality lectures and pedagogy? Enroll in your local community college or teaching university.
Apples and oranges. Learn to distinguish.
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Well, those 0.0001%ers still need to stand on the shoulders of giants or they will essentially get cheated in their education and never realize their real potential.
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The workplace is designed for the 99%ers. The Richard Branson's, Bill Gates' and Elon Musk's of this world owe their success to luck and a world ready for their technology, not, having abilities 10 times or 100 times superior.
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You do not want to advance your own skills and insights? How pathetic.
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I took an intro philosophy course at the community college I attended. It was my favorite course there, and a big part of it was how engaged the teacher was, and how engaged he encouraged the class to be. Definite two-way communication, dialectic if you will. One thing he said at the beginning of the semester always stuck with me: that he had turned down a more prestigious research position at some big-name university, because he wanted to actually teach.
I won't say all of the teachers at the community coll
Re:decline of Harvard (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: decline of Harvard (Score:2)
Why do Harvard MBAs ruin companies? Because greedy people ruin companies and greedy people get Harvard MBAs.
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Ah, so the chatbot makes sense for an expensive, ElCheapo designed course that is essentially worthless. Well, once the bean-counters take over, everything goes to shit. I guess Harvard can sell the name for a while longer and then they will just become another junk-title mill.
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I guess Harvard can sell the name for a while longer and then they will just become another junk-title mill.
You would think so, but they do teach one thing: how to create a work network, and leverage it effectively. They teach it very well, which is why the US supreme court is stacked with ivy league lawyers, despite the fact that they are complete morons in legal matters.
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Well, that works as long as it does not become a systematic thing and most others do better. If it becomes a systematic thing (and your example nicely shows it has), it becomes an important factor in society collapsing.
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If the state bureaucracy, or more specifically its leadership, wished to have a monopoly over policy making, the only way to achieve it was to create a monopoly over expertise and impartiality...How then to insure a state monopoly? The answer the Meiji leaders produced (with not inconsiderable guidance from European examples) was to create an educational system in the form of a step pyramid. Each step upward required a competitive entrance to a narrower and narrower number of schools that the state accepted as capable of producing expertise. The top was so narrow - Tokyo Imperial University - that the state had little trouble adjusting its own structure to absorb the product almost totally.
Expertise had to be acquired through an education capable of being objectively evaluated, and it had to be theoretically open to individuals on an equal basis.
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I'm thinking chatbot instruction might actually be an improvement on human-led instruction at Harvard, or most other universities for that matter!
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"Those dumb educated people with their facts! Why, they're just trying to control us! They don't want us to know that all you really need is a jar of urine, a little industrial bleach, and some horse paste!
Computer science? I know how to use a computer. I have a Yahoo and a Facebook and I didn't go to no Harvard! Nothing but a waste of money, if you ask me. Just look at my high-tech webzone!"
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No, that's not where I was going. Perhaps you've never had a professor who droned on and on and put everybody to sleep. I certainly have!
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Learn how to 1) organize your thoughts and 2) use paragraphs.
I'll respond this way: Language models are terrible at being tutors. They will confidently tell lies and defend those lies. That's going to hurt students far more than you imagine it will help.
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I've concluded that Harvard's CS program has some meaure of bullshit in it.
You go to Harvard to build connections, not skill. If you actually cared about skill, you would have gone to MIT. Or Stanislaus State.
Insane how fast this happened (Score:3)
Within one year. How does humanity give up THINKING or doing the basic reaponsibilities of their jobs, within ONE year of chatbots? No pause to even gauge the consequences?
Do SO many people find basic writing to be THAT difficult? Do programmers really all feel comfortable letting AI create code? I sure don't. But hell, I've seen how lazy and stupid and incompetent entry level developers are now, even at the most "prestigious" companies, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised they reach for a chatbot to do their work for them at the first chance they all got.
Do those of us who can still write, and can still code, get valued more? My guess is probably not because everyone's standards are just sinking lower... and lower...
The future of humanity really is going to be the lazy tubs of lard from the movie Wall-E.
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LOL this is not "giving up thinking". Was Google completing search results people giving up typing?
I posit that most critics of AI don't understand how it actually works. You'll also note those same critics aren't trying to regulate the use of binary trees. If you need help figuring out why that is, let me know and I'll gladly guide you to the answer but I'm hoping the answer is obvious.
Re: Insane how fast this happened (Score:2)
Except autocorrect IS making people worse at spelling. Just like GPS made people worse at navigating or being able to read a map.
But handing over your actual words and ideas to a glorified autocomplete seems a step even further.
I'm just waiting now for the AI excuse to become common. "I didn't write that offensive remark! It was ChatGPT! I'm merely guilty of failing to proofread it!" So now people won't even be able to be held account for their own words anymore. Blame it on AI.
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Study (Score:1)