A high schooler writes about AI tools in the classroom

Imagine back in the days when calculators were just invented. An 8 year old kid might have the similar complain: “my classmate finished a 4 digits number multiplication problem in 5 seconds which generally took 1mins.” People might say, in the long term, the kid who cheated would be less proficient in arithmetic, which turned out to be true. But when you think about it, it seems not the end of the world when most high schooler in US cannot do complicated arithmetic quickly and accurately without a calculator.

I have a feeling this is somehow different. The tool is broad enough, that I don't have to think myself in a wide variety of tasks, not just one. Which hurts my intelligence way more.

To my knowledge, even before HP-48 level calculators came in the classroom nobody cared about arithmetic past middle school. The core of the teaching was proofs and a lot more theory, and that went on into CS for me.

I'd compare it to the ability to write and run basic assembly. We did it, and got checked on it, but that was not what we were there for.

Even today though you’re still taught arithmetic without a calculator. My kids have spelling words even though we have spell check.

Why? Because otherwise they’d have no idea if the answer provided to them is “correct”. As the saying goes, garbage in garbage out. You type the wrong numbers into the calculator ? How would you know the answer is also wrong unless you knew “about” what the answer should be?

Arithmetic beyond the basics is mostly mechanical work with little gain to be had, unlike the described exercises.

The problem is that we’re letting kids go to the gym with a forklift, and we need them fit by the time they join adult life.

The two situations are not analogous.

The kind of task is not the same. With a calculator, you are delegating a very specific, bounded, and well-defined task. Being unable to approximate non-integer square roots by hand isn't the same as not knowing what square roots mean or when they are applicable. However with LLMs, people are often (trying to) delegate their executive-function and planning.

Another way to tell that the tasks are qualitatively different is to look at what levels/kinds of errors users will tolerate. A company selling calculators that gave subtly but undeniably-wrong answers 5% of the time would rightfully go bankrupt.

If you want to compare LLMs to something of yesteryear, it's closer to hiring someone to do the work for you: That's always been considered cheating, regardless of how cheaply the accomplice works or how badly they screw up.

At the same time, I remember most of high school math barely needing calculators outside chemistry and physics.

Look at some of the SAT math questions:

https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/digital-sat-samp...

The questions are all designed to have a tidy, closed-form answer. A calculator is either marginally helpful or outright cheating.

Yeah in your situation the student who used a calculator to avoid learning literally all arithmetic, to include basic multiplication tables, is going to be poorly served by their teachers. What the hell are you on about

> it seems not the end of the world when most high schooler in US cannot do complicated arithmetic quickly and accurately without a calculator.

You do realize those students learn arithmetic in an environment where calculators are not allowed right?