AI, the end or new beginnings?

AI has made it easy for quick fixes into code. As a maintainer of several project repositories, it feels like a relief. Lots of frameworks to assist in coding. I know what I want to do and AI feels like a little helper to quickly type certain code segment that I understand. It also helps find mistakes in code quickly. Similar to what IDEs did, but with extra support. But as an educator, I also feel dangerously horrible use of AI. Students are just throwing essay titles into ChatGPT. When an assignment slightly deviates from the norm and when they cannot let AI to complete it for them, some students are feeling frustrated. Students (both local and those who participate in remote programs - so the issue is global. Not limited to Alaska) simply let AI do coding and writing for them, and when something goes wrong, they are confused. For a trivial fix that would take the code author just a couple of minutes and a couple of lines to fix, the AI ends up with drastic changes. 

Sunset in Barbados

Many student essays feel bland. They lack soul and personality. If you give the student an well-designed homework, they quickly get the answer. When the problem involves thinking on architecture beyond what AI can handle for them at this point, they are stuck. "Can you tell me what I should exactly do here?" For vaguely defined problems, they want clear step-by-step instructions which they can then easily feed into LLMs.

As educators, we should spend more time in teaching architecture and thinking. If all students want is to simply feed clear instructions into ChatGPT, if I were an employer, I would rather do that myself. Why would I pay someone when they need clear instructions, step-by-step guidelines to a software program that they can easily feed into ChatGPT or other more advanced AI coding tools?

I used to enjoy fixing student papers. Those essays had life and personalities. They read like what students wrote. They sounded like the student. Now, they all sound bland. Like an AI slop. And they are indeed detected at 50 - 100% as AI by AI detectors of tools such as Grammarly Premium. At this point, I could simply write everything on my own. That will be, starting from zero, as opposed to trying to fix AI slop, which feels like starting from -100.

Computer science undergraduates are giving up the fight to LLM even before they start. This is sad as this is also a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

2017

Karlstad University, Sweden

I like to consider myself as someone who is ready to move to another place rapidly. I always have prepared for that since moving out of my country 13 years ago. However, in reality, I was relatively stable in most places when I moved somewhere. 2012 - 2018, Lisboa. 2018 - 2023, Atlanta. 2023 onward Anchorage. However, 2017 is an exception. In certain sense, it also feels like the peak of craziness. In a good way. I moved between countries real rapid. Portugal -> Belgium -> Portugal (and then some back and forth between Portugal and Belgium) -> Belgium -> Saudi Arabia -> Belgium -> Portugal. A year that tested my limits and also the summit of "seek discomfort." It is also the year I traveled most. I went to 9 new countries - and 16 countries in total in that single year. Often I have thought about this year. I have even tried to intentionally overtake the record of 2017. The last time I put a serious effort was 2020. But then the pandemic hit and ruined the plans. Although I tend to believe my subsequent years 2019 and 2024 have greatly overtaken my 2017 in general, the peak of adventures, discoveries, new lands, travels, and sleepless nights (there was a 60-hours no sleep for 2 nights) of my 2017 have left 2017 sort of a peak in my life. I still think of overtaking the year at some point. But not everything can be planned. Stuff happens organically and 2017 had its magical moments.

Lonely long flights and why I love them

Drinks on the flight

I always have enjoyed long solo flights. It may be boring for many. Lonely for others. But I have loved those. When I think about why I love these flights a lot, I have an answer. These flights force me to sit and idle. Usually, I am not at complete rest, except when I fall asleep. But in flight, you give up control. I do not read books or use laptop in the flight. Sometimes I watch the entertainment system in the screen in front of me. But for most part, I just idle. That level of idling is not possible in ground transport. The ground transport gives you more control. You can stop in the middle. You have control. But the lack of control in a flight lets you relax and recall the past memories. It almost feels like time-traveling, when you completely lose yourself to your own thoughts of the past. That is a nice feeling.