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I learned Calculus despite having access to Mathematica, TI-89/92/CX-CAS, and WolframAlpha. I still had to do hundreds of derivations and integrations and manual manipulation of separable differential equations entirely by hand to learn it. But these tools made it easier for me to understand what I was doing wrong.

So, I agree with you, but it's also already been true for decades now with other tools.

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All these tools only replace mechanical aspects, not thinking ones. AI is truly unique and unprecedented in that way.

A spellchecker is purely mechanical, it just helps you spell your essay right. But it won't make your essay good, or help you write the right essay.


Integration in calculus often required me to "guess" a strategy ahead of time. It was more similar to searching for moves in chess than solving long division. Some moves would make it easier vs. harder and some would seemingly be a dead end.

WolframAlpha usually got to the correct answer, but often used a non-human strategy for integration. Generally, the best way to do it was simpler than what WolframAlpha's "step-by-step" showed, which was rather "brute force" and inelegant.

So, again, I agree. But again, it's a matter of degree and encompassing more domains vs. a binary change.


It's a different degree sure, but it's a big enough leap I consider it a different thing. It's similar to paying someone to do your homework or write your essays. Your critical thinking approaches zero, which is really bad for education.

Not just education... it affects how people make decisions throughout life. In other words it makes a person ill-prepared to deal with the stuff that happens in life.

In another two examples:

As a kid, I remember my teachers not allowing us to use calculators and times table pencils exactly to make us go through the painful process of using our brain to get to know math.

Today I'm doing a Master's on AI and AI is a tool I use not only to summarize, but to validate my understading. I don't jump into a GPT session asking it to do the exercise for me or to explain something. I ask it to help me finding out my error after inumerous tries; to say the same thing me in another words because English isn't my first language and often I don't know the terminology that the Academia uses; to write an analogy (which often absurd ones pop up); to guide me where I'm missing something.

It's a freaking powerful learning tool if used properly.




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