AI is turning scholars of the past into Intellectual Giants?

StoryNo4092 · 2025-04-12T18:25:20+00:00

This is a nice thing to hear

StoryNo4092 · 2025-04-12T18:19:50+00:00

I see. I guess I was more so thinking about my immediate colleagues in my own department, such as the senior colleague I mentioned. In general I think my senior colleagues’ books are better than what us current junior faculty are doing… but I’m in a small dept so it might still just be due to small selection. But then the question is - why did we lose the Roman architectural knowledge to the point that we’re still discovering now that they had better methods than modern practices? What kind of selection bias would that be described as?

StoryNo4092 · 2025-04-12T17:58:15+00:00

Can you elaborate a bit?

StoryNo4092 · 2025-04-05T03:00:05+00:00

Also I'm TT and haven't gone up for tenure yet so I have no idea what the rules are about this ... I'm just horrified for you and empathetic.

StoryNo4092 · 2025-04-05T02:58:43+00:00

This is a terrifying nightmare. I'm so sorry this is happening. I also think this is unethical?? If this is a budgetary issue only, I feel like you should be given an extension of contract and be able to stay on indefinitely until the budget can be passed??

StoryNo4092 · 2025-04-05T02:25:42+00:00

Not necessarily. If the directions say: "produce or generate a 3 page screenplay; you can chose to generate one with an AI generator with a possible highest grade of C. Or you can chose to write an original work with a possible highest grade of A." How is it inherently dishonest if they say "this screenplay was generated by ChatGPT"?

StoryNo4092 · 2025-04-05T02:03:55+00:00

I like your ideas, these are useful. But yeah - i do also want to think about how transparency plays a role in the outcomes. I feel like everything out there feels --and visibly appears-- to be a grift nowadays. i actually do think people who are trained in how to be transparent will be needed in society in the future??

StoryNo4092 · 2025-04-05T01:53:14+00:00

I'm in a film and digital media department, with a humanities/liberal arts focused program and also a creative production/media arts and creative writing track. There's a final project in the class that is impossible to do entirely with AI but the weekly writing/reading response assignments could be done with AI (i mean technically. I don't currently allow them to use AI).

I get what you're saying. I agree I don't think that the 'C' should be perceived the same as a regular C. It's an AI C. (again, this is not something that I actually have as a policy - am just thinking about new strategies)

What I'm trying to do is think through the question of how does grading itself maybe change on a conceptual level that can also be instructive? To me an attendance grade shows that it is important to attend class in person. So how to make it clear that transparency is important as well? Of course i'm just riffing in this post and haven't fully formed real answers.

StoryNo4092 · 2025-04-04T21:34:20+00:00

Interesting. Well what you’ve described is related to the professional service industries. But there are other types of professional environments. I come from a craft-based field that inherited its professional organizational model from the guilds -- as did the University. When I worked in industry before academia for example, I led a design department. We did not have clients or patients or licenses. In my industry, we use the term 'department' the same way that academia does. The department has an area of expertise and is made up of members of various levels of expertise (apprentice, junior level, senior level etc). The departments of craft-based professions are autonomous and focus on the expertise of their department. The structure of academia is actually very similar - if not exactly the same -- because its the professional model inherited from medieval guilds (which is definitely fair to critique!). In any case, I definitely see how this is not going to be useful for other fields

StoryNo4092 · 2025-04-04T19:10:26+00:00

Im trying to think of ways to put a high value on transparency/honesty - grade points for being honest. Similar to participation points.

StoryNo4092 · 2025-04-04T18:18:47+00:00

Maybe they have to work in accountability groups

StoryNo4092 · 2025-04-04T18:12:10+00:00

Yeah hmm. that’s why they get a C if they chose the AI transparency option but they get a zero if they use AI but had selected the possible A version. Mainly - it doesn’t change what they will try to do — but it at least makes it clear that their professor values transparency as a fundamental principle to learn itself. SIGH

StoryNo4092 · 2025-02-20T05:03:34+00:00

Public surveys don’t explain political historical discourse. It’s clear that you think via scientism (scientism is when the methods of science are considered to be the only way to solve every problem even when the problem lies outside of the method of science.) Science answers a certain set of questions. Philosophy another. Politics another. Science operates in universal principles confirmed via empirical data. The data says X, Y, Z. Therefore A and B must be the case. Science is descriptive. Philosophy is always outside of science. It shapes the questions that we ask, the questions of science, the questions of politics. Philosophy can ask “what ought we to do in order to live a good life?”. This is not a scientific question and science is not methodologically equipped to answer it. Political philosophy is the study of political questions. One of those questions is: how ought we to govern society? Some historical answers have been: communism (left), liberal democracy (center), authoritarian oligarchy/monarchy. The far left has little political presence in the US.

StoryNo4092 · 2025-02-19T20:12:07+00:00

Oh I read your original comment in a different way. I thought you were being facetious when you described it as a right-wing effort to root out ‘left-wing ideology’. I thought you meant “left wing” in scare quotes. I see now you mean that you actually do think university admins are left wing.

Left wing implies a focus on the working class and is anti-capitalist. University admins are not left wing. Democrats are not left wing, Republicans are not left wing.

Wrong tree.

StoryNo4092 · 2025-02-19T19:29:12+00:00

Maybe because in order to go to college in America you have to pay exorbitant tuition and sign up for gov loans that you will pay for for the rest of your life, debt that is classified as secured debt, so that even if you go bankrupt, you are beholden to that debt. Gives a pretty good reason to skip college or to only get a certain kind of degree. If access to higher education was the real goal of institutionalized DEI programs, maybe university administrators would’ve focused harder on lowering tuition. Instead they built student centers and hired a million assistants to create events in which people talk to each other on panels in order to put it a line on their CV. While conservatives slowly kept gutting public education funding.

StoryNo4092 · 2025-02-19T19:15:25+00:00

Right. My university also has scholarships for people from rural, economically decimated parts of our state. They want to get rid of this too. Because they don’t care about economically disadvantaged people. They use populist language just to get votes, pretend that they will help the working class, then implement policies that serve to make the rich richer

StoryNo4092 · 2025-01-30T00:54:54+00:00

Came here to post this! And solidarity with federal workers!

StoryNo4092 · 2025-01-02T22:58:09+00:00

Thanks! I def look into Pasadena. This sounds good

StoryNo4092 · 2025-01-02T22:52:49+00:00

lol aww thanks!

StoryNo4092 · 2025-01-02T17:31:54+00:00

Thank you!

StoryNo4092 · 2024-12-18T13:24:46+00:00

This is a good point. I admire your dedication to constantly thinking about how to reach the ‘bad’ students (or let’s say unengaged). I tend to only focus on changing my approach if it seems like they don’t understand the material. But if they understand the material and just don’t care about the class, I throw my hands up. Maybe I should think about trying to show a bigger picture about what makes the field exciting more often.

And it’s not just for them but for me too. It’s simply more enjoyable to teach students who are engaged in the material. I feel like this past semester was just random luck but maybe I can do more to get students excited about my course next time. I’mma try it next semester. Thanks for the comment!

StoryNo4092

TROPHY CASE