4 comments

  • lordnacho 6 minutes ago
    The decline seems to have started in the 2010s. Makes me wonder if this is connected to Jon Haidt's ideas about the impact of social media.
    • andai 4 minutes ago
      Last I heard it started in the 90s. Although a lot of horrifying graphs do have their inflection point the year the iPhone came out.
  • nntwozz 13 minutes ago
    At Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg Sweden 80% of the students would pass the entrance exam in the 60s.

    These days it's reversed, only 20% pass.

    I was told this was the case around 2005 when I studied there.

    The exam has not changed in difficulty.

    • adrianN 9 minutes ago
      What percentage of the population is expected to get university education today vs the sixties?
    • tsimionescu 9 minutes ago
      What's the difference in how many people apply?
  • a2ff6eeb0 21 minutes ago
    Makes sense. The kids can see that education isn't really going to be a sellable skill when AI ends up coming into full force.

    AI already writes most of the articles I see posted here, is doing math at the level of the best mathematics, and is writing a ton of the code out there. Given another decade to develop, the kids will be hitting the workforce with very stiff competition. It's not a shock they're putting their energy elsewhere, and I can't say they're wrong.

    They may be the first generation who grow up fully catered to by AI.

    • dumberquestions 17 minutes ago
      The decline started in early to mid 2010's, this has little to do with AI.
    • omnicognate 10 minutes ago
      > is doing math at the level of the best mathematics

      Terence Tao a few days ago [1]:

      > When we point the AIs at really difficult problems where none of the standard techniques apply, they are still very, very bad, I mean they're just randomly guessing.

      Please don't reply saying they'll be proving the Collatz conjecture next week. It adds nothing.

      [1] https://youtu.be/svl_1upFpQo (worth watching on the role of LLMs in maths)

      • adrianN 7 minutes ago
        The best mathematicians are also not very good at solving the hardest problems though. By definition.
        • Timon3 4 minutes ago
          Aren't the best mathematicians the best at solving the hardest problems? I don't see how you can argue this without assuming an arbitrary scale for being "good" at something.
      • a2ff6eeb0 8 minutes ago
        Let's see you solve some open problems before you dismiss LLM capabilities. They're working at a level far beyond all but the best of the best.

        And we're only a couple of years in. Their capabilities aren't going to be getting worse over time. These kids will be hitting the workforce after AI has another decade of improvement put into it.

        • omnicognate 2 minutes ago
          I quoted Terence Tao. Are you suggesting he hasn't solved any open problems?
    • getnormality 4 minutes ago
      > Makes sense. The kids can see that education isn't really going to be a sellable skill when AI ends up coming into full force.

      If true, this is a disastrously foolish thing to believe. Education is only going to become more important as supervising increasingly advanced AI agents becomes more difficult. We need people who understand all different domains of human endeavor at the deepest level possible.

      I mean, what's the alternative? AI does everything for me and I play Fortnite all day? Might as well plug yourself into the Matrix.

      • a2ff6eeb0 1 minute ago
        It seems unlikely that we'll be able to keep up with AI in any capacity. Your alternative seems like the inevitable outcome of AI succeeding, and it doesn't sound so bad.
    • watwut 13 minutes ago
      Yes, kids are the demographics known for long term thinking and rational decision making.
    • GPerson 10 minutes ago
      I hope people recognize this account doom posts what amounts to misanthropic propaganda at a very high rate. There’s never any question how the comment is going to be framed. It’s always, “give up little humans, your robot overlords are here.”
    • loloquwowndueo 16 minutes ago
      Dunno man, the articles ai writes are empty cardboard crap, and the code it produces is hot garbage. “Cleaner upper of AI messes” might be a good future skill to have.
      • lordnacho 9 minutes ago
        I don't think you can dismiss the output quality so easily.

        Give yourself a few hours to write out some code in the old way. Can you really tell me that you could not have done a better job with AI in the same time?

        Eg, implement chess or poker games.

        Or write a component like a Swiss table.

        It's not obvious to me that AI produces bad work at all.

      • AdamN 14 minutes ago
        As has been said before we've been cleaning up garbage code for generations and that doesn't look even close to changing anytime soon.
        • jahller 6 minutes ago
          100%, does it matter if I cleanup the mess of another dev or of an AI? I don't think so.
    • suddenlybananas 15 minutes ago
      Where do you think they are putting their energy?
  • tokai 25 minutes ago
    Great. With later and later retirement dates, its important that the younger generations are easier to compete with. /s
    • squishington 14 minutes ago
      That's quite funny, but the new recruits at my work place are super smart and full of piss and vinegar. Much more motivated than some of the older workers. The problem is that they will work lots of unpaid overtime, and they have no idea about work boundaries and being exploited by employers.
      • andai 2 minutes ago
        Sounds like they're trading excess energy for accelerated development. Where do I sign up?
      • myrmidon 7 minutes ago
        [dead]