AI - A force for Good or Bad?

[sime42]

On 29/10/2025 at 10:32, Squaredy said:

The educational establishment (especially universities) have really been caught napping by AI.  Apparently most universities have no policy or method of determining how much of students’ work is their own.  And when you add to that the fact that most assessments are now course based (very few degrees need exams now according to my ChatGpt) it is quite a pickle.

 

I had a chat with my own son’s maths teacher last year about the system they are made to use for maths homework (when he was in Year 10 so age 14).  I pointed out to the teacher that because of the way the system (Sparx maths) works it encourages pupils to cheat.  
 

He assured me it was impossible for kids to cheat as they all get set different questions.  I had to inform him that most likely every kid in his class knows exactly how to cheat using a whole variety of apps, all of which are literally in front of them on the same screen as they are using to do the homework.  Even Google lense gives the answer to all these problems, with all the correct workings to copy down for the workbook.  My twelve year old now uses Sparx Maths, and sure enough all his mates know how to cheat.

 

This raises one of the critical points.  Organisations have to very quickly come up to speed and work out what impact AI could have and how they will manage it.  Right now schools and universities are clueless as to what the impacts are, or what they need to do.

 

Students cheating is the least of our worries when it comes to children and AI. 

 

Teenage boys using ‘personalised’ AI for therapy and romance, survey finds | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian

WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM

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Male Allies UK worries rise in chatbot ‘girlfriends’ will leave boys unable to socialise and respect boundaries

 

 

"The research, based on a survey of boys in secondary education across 37 schools in England, Scotland and Wales, also found that more than half (53%) of teenage boys said they found the online world more rewarding than the real world."

 

 

 

[openspaceman]

15 minutes ago, sime42 said:

I want to ask for a more in-depth explanation of the ANDing masquerading as adding thing.

I got that wrong, it's 55 years since I last had to do it.

 

It does add but it does so by NANDing two numbers and the discarding the most significant bit

 

(0)101==Decimal 5

(0)001== Decimal 1

(1)110 NANDed

Discard most significant bit

110==Decimal 6

 

So the most basic thing a computer does is a comparison of binary digits and from this simple operation every thing which we do on a computer is based.

 

Next it's qubits and that totally confuses me.

 

 

 

[Welshfred]

8 hours ago, openspaceman said:

I got that wrong, it's 55 years since I last had to do it.

 

It does add but it does so by NANDing two numbers and the discarding the most significant bit

 

(0)101==Decimal 5

(0)001== Decimal 1

(1)110 NANDed

Discard most significant bit

110==Decimal 6

 

So the most basic thing a computer does is a comparison of binary digits and from this simple operation every thing which we do on a computer is based.

 

Next it's qubits and that totally confuses me.

 

 

 

 

I wonder if we're more or less terminally confused by the ai revolution than our ancestors were by the industrial revolution. Information is a lot more available these days but I'm not sure that leads to greater understanding. Especially after reading the above...

[AHPP]

On 03/11/2025 at 17:27, Stubby said:

And they are still waiting for compensation , counseling and an apology .  AI in this instance was fcuking evil .    

 

Bates himself was awarded his money yesterday apparently.

[AHPP]

18 hours ago, openspaceman said:

I got that wrong, it's 55 years since I last had to do it.

 

It does add but it does so by NANDing two numbers and the discarding the most significant bit

 

(0)101==Decimal 5

(0)001== Decimal 1

(1)110 NANDed

Discard most significant bit

110==Decimal 6

 

So the most basic thing a computer does is a comparison of binary digits and from this simple operation every thing which we do on a computer is based.

 

Next it's qubits and that totally confuses me.

 

 

 

 

Interesting. I remember doing that sort of logic at a school club in the 1990s. That and programming a minotaur to walk round a maze.

[Mark J]

BASIC, Pascal, HTML, Lingo, ActionScript, Ruby on Rails. 

Fell out of love with pixels and picked up a chainsaw. 
 

[sime42]

On 03/11/2025 at 20:40, AHPP said:

 

I'm getting to the point of being pushed too far by self service tills. I shouted fck off at one just now and then shouted again to get someone to fix it (not rudely but in an arguably un-British way). There are five supermarkets within a few hundred metres here. I can easily boycott the ones that won't run tills (when asked, which I do, nicely), which is inevitably where this is going. They'll probably survive without my meagre spending but when I shouted earlier, the other ten people stood round the shit machines nodded in agreement. People have had enough of this bollocks.

 

I had the usual frustrating self service till episode earlier. This one was particularly fcking hair tearing. There must have been one person who felt it even more than me. That was the poor woman who had to keep coming over to flash her magic fob at it, getting on for 10 times.

 

The people they employ to do that job must go through a hardcore selection process, to weed out all but those with the most superhuman of patience. Imagine doing that for 8 hours a day, without screaming at someone? Soul destroying. I'm sure they'd rather be manually scanning stuff through on proper tills. At least they get to judge all the punters on what they've bought. 

 

 

[AHPP]

16 minutes ago, sime42 said:

 

I had the usual frustrating self service till episode earlier. This one was particularly fcking hair tearing. There must have been one person who felt it even more than me. That was the poor woman who had to keep coming over to flash her magic fob at it, getting on for 10 times.

 

The people they employ to do that job must go through a hardcore selection process, to weed out all but those with the most superhuman of patience. Imagine doing that for 8 hours a day, without screaming at someone? Soul destroying. I'm sure they'd rather be manually scanning stuff through on proper tills. At least they get to judge all the punters on what they've bought. 

 

 

 

The lass who fixed mine was at the end of her tether. A woman her size wants a less stressful job too I'd suggest...

 

I used one in a different shop this evening because the girl perched on a chair by them has a bad back and I didn't want to make her traipse round to a till for just one thing. How do I know she has a bad back? I talk to people in shops like a human. Her daughter is on a CAD drafting apprenticeship. Her partner has a recovery truck. She remarked she hadn't seen me in for a couple of weeks. A very unimportant, minor and fleeting but nevertheless human exchange. The sort I'll miss when everything is two lonely people staring at each other through pixellated glass.

[AHPP]

On technology cheapening the human experience generally:

 

Plus they're a good band.

[Steven P]

1 hour ago, sime42 said:

 

I had the usual frustrating self service till episode earlier. This one was particularly fcking hair tearing. There must have been one person who felt it even more than me. That was the poor woman who had to keep coming over to flash her magic fob at it, getting on for 10 times.

 

Not AI related but the help yourself tills are a game, usual routine for me is the -usually a lady- (ladies don't get shouted at or the agro that men get) has to pop over once or twice a shop. I once managed to get the whole till to shut down, go off line and show the 'Windows' screen (not sure exactly how, wish I could remember what I did). If the lady isn't there with the fob, I'll just leave that till 'broken' and move to the next one (saw the shop staff run out the shop for a shoplifter, check the cameras and realise the 'shoplifter' was just doing his shopping at a till that was working right.

 

53 minutes ago, AHPP said:

 

The lass who fixed mine was at the end of her tether. A woman her size wants a less stressful job too I'd suggest...

 

I used one in a different shop this evening because the girl perched on a chair by them has a bad back and I didn't want to make her traipse round to a till for just one thing. How do I know she has a bad back? I talk to people in shops like a human. Her daughter is on a CAD drafting apprenticeship. Her partner has a recovery truck. She remarked she hadn't seen me in for a couple of weeks. A very unimportant, minor and fleeting but nevertheless human exchange. The sort I'll miss when everything is two lonely people staring at each other through pixellated glass.

 

Yup, I know a few of the supermarket staff just because I'll ask them how their days were - trolley man who does saloon car racing, shelf stacker whose having a slow breakdown, other one whose boy is in the police - embarrasses The Boys "Dad how do you know them" "I don't, I just chat with them". AI won't do that.

 

 

On topic of course, AI will have to cope with the grumpy old child in me who loves to work out how to break the machines.