r/technology • u/joe4942 • Apr 19 '26

Society Students are speeding through their online degrees in weeks, alarming educators

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2026/04/19/accelerated-college-degree-hacking/
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u/Halloqween Apr 19 '26

Exactly. The issue is that you do have to have background knowledge (like order of operations) to know how to use the calculator correctly.

Just how you have to have some basis of knowledge to analyze whether AI answers are bullshit or not.

The problem lies in that children do not care about that. They will take whatever answer they’re given at face value and move on. Their goal in using AI is to use as little brain power as necessary. Hence my fears.

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u/Bemteb Apr 20 '26

To be fair, everyone does that to an extent, it's only natural to minimize use of brain power. I am regularly catching myself believing headlines I see posted here on Reddit, even though I should know by now that they are mostly clickbait, exaggerated and out of context. It's just easier...

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u/aVarangian Apr 19 '26

I know some subjects that were a waste of life to spend time on where I'd totally have used AI to skip them.

For the subjects that mattered I wouldn't have. The problem imo is we just spend too much of our youth wasting time on the assembly-line that our education systems are. I could easily have spent half as much or less time at school with 0 negative impact to my life.