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AI Use Convinces California Math Professor There's 'No Point' Grading Homework (dailycal.org) 150

Posted by EditorDavid from the school-daze dept.
From the student newspaper at the University of California, Berkeley: Richard Borcherds, a UC Berkeley professor and Fields medalist, no longer grades his students' homework. After seeing how many of his students used AI to consistently receive top scores, he felt there was "no point" in paying readers to grade for correctness in homework, as AI use is now unavoidable.

Borcherds revealed this in a sit-down interview Tuesday, following OpenAI's announcement that AI agents apparently solved one of mathematics' most difficult unsolved problems, the Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness problem. "If AI continues to improve at present rate, then, in a few years, there'll be nothing human mathematicians can do that AI can't do better," Borcherds said.

Borcherds said he currently grades on completion if a student hands in their homework. He admitted that it is "not a very good system," but at the moment, he has no alternative... Campus has tried several AI detection tools, including Turnitin and Rumi, but have determined that these tools aren't adequate enough to be standardized on campus.
The article points out that at the university, each class's AI policy "is up to the discretion of faculty."

AI Use Convinces California Math Professor There's 'No Point' Grading Homework More | Reply

AI Use Convinces California Math Professor There's 'No Point' Grading Homework

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  • Good (Score:5, Insightful)

    by reanjr ( 588767 ) on Sunday October 25, 2026 @07:12PM (#66392942) Homepage

    Grading homework is kind of silly anyway. It should be for practice. Regular testing every week or so is the way to go.

    • Let me fix this for you (Score:5, Interesting)

      by BitterEpic ( 10503015 ) on Sunday October 25, 2026 @07:27PM (#66392960) Homepage

      Grading homework is kind of silly anyway. It should be for practice. Regular testing every week or so is the way to go while wearing your Meta glasses.

      AI is a type of heroin that is very hard to stop once you start. Students once intoxicated will have a hard time stopping for "weekly tests." They always eventually become unable to even reference primary sources, where the only truth is AI.

      Do you read Sutter Cane?

    • Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 25, 2026 @07:29PM (#66392964)

      What do you think homework is? It *is* testing the student's understanding of the concepts and exposing gaps in that understanding.

      Relying only on weekly tests is too late, especially when there are 20+ students dumber than a bag of hammers, to explain concepts several lectures ago.

      • It shouldn't be. You have your students for hours while theyrein school, if you can't manage to get your stuff done while they're there, you shouldn't be a teacher.

      • Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)

        by SumDog ( 466607 ) on Monday October 26, 2026 @10:42AM (#66393814) Homepage Journal
        Then let the kids fail every quiz and learn to do the work on their own when they're forced to retake the class. Professors should make a big deal about if they AI the homework, they probably won't pass the tests. The real math majors probably won't use AI at all because the subject and challenge interests them; it's the education, cs, other majors that will try to skip it.

        Personally, I did horrible in math in undergrad; so bad I had to retake Linear Algebra in grad school (undergrad version) and make a B or higher to continue grad school (did not affect GPA). So this time, whenever I learned a new thing, I added it to a Matrix library I was writing first, THEN I did the homework. Figuring out how to do it programmatically made a massive difference! I made As and Bs on every quiz and test thanks to that method.

        I don't think we really teach math correctly in school, and AI will just make it worse.

      • Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)

        by thegreatemu ( 1457577 ) on Monday October 26, 2026 @11:41AM (#66393916)
        Here's the thing, though. Take two students, Alice, who has already mastered the course content, and Bob, who has mastered the prerequisites but know nothing about the class. Each does all of the homework. Alice gets perfect scores on every lesson, while Bob makes several mistakes, and uses the feedback from those mistakes to learn the course material. At the end of the course, both Alice and Bob ace the final exam, and both leave with an equal mastery of the material.

        That's why grading homework has always been stupid, because it punishes students for not knowing the course material before taking the course! Shouldn't two students demonstrating equal mastery of course material after at the end of the course receive the same grade? (I know exams are not a good way to demonstrate mastery, but that's beside the point here.) In fact, if I knew nothing else about them other than their performance in this class, I would hire Bob, for demonstrating an ability to learn.

        • That's why grading homework has always been stupid, because it punishes students for not knowing the course material before taking the course

          It used to be, if you don't grade the homework, the students wouldn't do it. So then no one learned anything and failed the class.

          Now, students just turn it over to AI and still aren't doing the homework, so the original reason to grade it (to get students to do it themselves) doesn't matter because they aren't doing it even if it's graded.

          If you give a bunch of in-person quizzes, and then fail everyone in the class (because they aren't doing the homework because it isn't graded), the students complain

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by EvilSS ( 557649 )
        None of my professors, at least in my STEM courses (biochem major, plus the requried bio, math, and physics) graded homework. They assigned it, some reviewed in class, but none graded it. They gave us the lectures, answered questions, assigned reading and homework then it was our responsibility to pass the tests. If you could do so without doing the homework, great. If not, better do it or you won't pass the exams.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mal-2 ( 675116 )

      It would make sense to me if the answer key was posted after the homework came due. The students could grade their own work against the answer key if they choose, and if they consistently got something wrong they could ask about it. This means less work for the instructors while still performing the due diligence of giving the students feedback on the quality of their homework. Those who care will use what is provided. Those who don't, won't.

      • Re:Good (Score:4, Interesting)

        by stabiesoft ( 733417 ) on Monday October 26, 2026 @11:53AM (#66393936) Homepage
        I had a physics class that took a somewhat different approach. You flunked, yes flunked the course unless every single homework problem was completed and turned in correctly. If you turned in an incorrect answer, it was returned to you for another try. The second time you'd get a B on the question. If you failed a 2nd time, you tried again and get a C if correct. Then a D, then an F. But even with the F you still needed to get it right eventually, or the whole course would be an F. Study groups became a real thing for that class. It was an excellent class and I got the material on the 1st try usually, he was a very good lecturer. Which is really impressive for a class of around 400 in lecture. I don't think anyone got an F due to homework. Prof did not care if you got help to answer the questions. Just that they got turned in correctly. He also did another thing I wasn't aware of until the end of the semester. He'd take I think it was the top 10 people in the class to a pretty nice dinner. I was #12 I think, so I missed it by that much.

        I also found actually doing homework helped reinforce concepts. Another thing many of the EE profs did was allow a 3x5 index card in exams where you could carry in formulas etc. That too was useful as it forced you to really look over what was important and how to boil it down to a minimal set of notes. Those .3mm pentil pencils were perfect for the cards.

    • Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <`slashdot' `at' `worf.net'> on Sunday October 25, 2026 @10:06PM (#66393132)

      When I was in university, homework was at most 10% of your grade. The midterm exam was often worth 45%, and the final the other 45%. Often with the stipulation that you must pass the final to pass the course.

      I had classes where homework was assigned but not graded. It was obvious who did the homework and who didn't - you just didn't do very well on the final or midterm if you didn't do the optional homework.

      Everyone's an adult. You don't do the assigned homework at your own risk, even if it isn't graded. Midterms and final exam correspond to the biggest influence on your grade.

      Heck, sometimes the midterm mark can be dropped as well - I've had plenty of professors simply say because we scored badly on the midterms, they'll use the final exam mark if we do better. So if you scored a 30% on the midterm but then get an 80% on the exam, you get an 80% on the class.

      Stop the coddling and just treat everyone as an adult. Assign homework, but don't mark it. You can ask if people had a problem they got stuck on so they could work it out as part of the lecture, but not part of the grade. The final grade you get depends solely on the midterm and/or the final exam.

      (I got a D on a class where I didn't do the homework. The second semester the followup course I did the homework and got an A-)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jezwel ( 2451108 )

        Assign homework, but don't mark it. You can ask if people had a problem they got stuck on so they could work it out as part of the lecture

        This seems a much better use of time - working out where students are having issues. Not only can teachers help students understand, their curriculum can be updated as well to reduce confusion for future students.

        Some concepts are much harder to understand when you're looking at equations, but when a real-world model is manipulated in front of you it's much easier to grasp.

      • treat everyone as an adult

        Uh huh, that'll work. Grades are both feedback to the student and an artificial reason to actually do the work, and it was done that way because there is a short supply of people who are completely self-motivated and need neither carrot nor stick. In engineering you learn that mistakes become much more expensive the later they're found in the development process. Allowing students to cheat with AI, assuming they'll fall flat on their faces when they will be entering the work force, is one way to let a mista

      • The only thing I ever got out of doing homework at Uni was a case of beer. The reward for our team coming first in an assignment to devise a strategy for maximizing throughput through a telecoms switch. A far as grades went, midterms and finals set them, 50/50.

        But my high school was the same, come to think of it (though it was a Montessori school, a bit different from others). Teachers assigned homework, some even checked that you completed the work, but the only homework that was actually graded were

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by HiThere ( 15173 )

          Well, the use of AI *should* be encouraged, but that's a lousy way to do it. After graduation the students will need to live in a world where they deal with AI...but we don't know what the shape of that world will be.

          OTOH, the main thing you're supposed to learn in mathematics classes is "the shape of mathematics". Learning to do the mathematics is secondary, now that calculators have advanced to AIs. (I've become nearly dependent on spell-check, but I don't really think of this as a problem.)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by eepok ( 545733 )

      Homework is graded to force students to practice because they wouldn't practice otherwise.

      That's the difficulty of education. EVERYONE recognizes the need for it and almost everyone is grateful for having been educated, but 98% of the people receiving education would rather be doing something else.

      Very few people are driven by the intrinsic rewards of education.

  • "That's not intelligence!" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Sunday October 25, 2026 @07:14PM (#66392944)
    "in a few years, there'll be nothing human mathematicians can do that AI can't do better," Borcherds said. " Oh, that's sad. If history serves as a guide, it means we'll have to re-define math as "not intellience (TM)" and rationalize that AI is just brute-forcing it since DNN's are incapable of making novel generalizations (even though they do exactly that, constantly).

    • Re:"That's not intelligence!" (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Sunday October 25, 2026 @11:52PM (#66393222) Homepage

      Calculators can do math better than humans. Computers can play chess better than humans. Software can do accounting better than humans. Cars can move things better than humans. Factories can make nails better than humans. Printing presses can make books better than humans.

      Things that mathematicians do, being done better by computers, seems like just one more thing in a long, long chain, of things machines can do better than humans.

      • Things that mathematicians do, being done better by computers, seems like just one more thing in a long, long chain, of things machines can do better than humans.

        That's true in a way, but I'm not sure it's the same. In the industrial revolution, machines took over a lot of menial tasks, and although it was difficult in the short term, in the long term, I think, people generally moved on to more interesting, or at least less depressing, things. In the past, I think, this has generally been the way. Machin

        • What part of your question points to something that is different *this time*?

          AI also takes the "menial" work of, say, coding. To me, this is very definitely drudge work. Why should I personally have to solve the problem of, for example, how to decrypt an authentication token, when it's a solved problem? When I write such code, I'm not doing something new, I'm just repeating a process that has been done many times by others. I'm doing it again because it hasn't been done in *this* software before (whatever I

      • Re:"That's not intelligence!" (Score:4, Insightful)

        by CubicleZombie ( 2590497 ) on Monday October 26, 2026 @09:29AM (#66393652)

        Things that mathematicians do, being done better by computers, seems like just one more thing in a long, long chain, of things machines can do better than humans.

        Machines in the past were used to facilitate humans doing things faster and at higher volume. The power hammer didn't replace the blacksmith. The tractor didn't replace the farmer. Those things made humans more productive. AI is different.

    • Re:"That's not intelligence!" (Score:4, Insightful)

      by OolimPhon ( 1120895 ) on Monday October 26, 2026 @06:31AM (#66393448)

      The problem is that AI may be able to solve mathematics problems easier than humans, but it cannot conceive the questions in the first place. That takes imagination.

  • Same as it ever was (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DaTroof ( 678806 ) on Sunday October 25, 2026 @07:46PM (#66392972)
    This sounds like he's unwilling to do a little extra work to determine if the student actually understands their submitted work. If that's true now, it was true 40 years ago, when the student could have turned in paperwork that some other student actually did.

    • A little extra work? Such as?

    • This sounds like he's unwilling to do a little extra work to determine if the student actually understands their submitted work.

      That's what the in-class exams and quizzes are for.

      If that's true now, it was true 40 years ago, when the student could have turned in paperwork that some other student actually did.

      The in-class exams and quizzes solved that problem too.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DaTroof ( 678806 )
        All fair points, but I'm arguing against this particular assertion:

        Borcherds said he currently grades on completion if a student hands in their homework. He admitted that it is “not a very good system,” but at the moment, he has no alternative.

        If you have zero indication that a student understands the material other than whether they handed in the homework, the existence of AI is not the problem.

  • Point at someone in the class, make them explain something.

  • In-class tests (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Todd Knarr ( 15451 ) on Sunday October 25, 2026 @07:46PM (#66392976) Homepage

    Grade homework on completion and be done with it. Then schedule in-class quizzes and exams, where students are expected to show their work as well as the results and do it hand-written. That makes it hard to access chatbots, and even if students do the drudgery of transcribing the chatbot's output will discourage them (if they were willing to do that much work, they wouldn't be trying to skip the work using a chatbot). They may skate by on the homework, but the exam scores will show whether they actually learned the material or not.

    • Or how about, reduce homework, period. Most homework can be done during class time. That's how we did it in the 70s when I was in school. Sure, we had a little homework, but nothing like what kids deal with today.

      • Obviously you were not a math major. If you're studying upper division math courses or other stem fields at a major research university, the pace of courses is such that it is expected that a student should spend something like 15 hours per week on one such course outside of class time (So taking more than two such courses during one semester is basically a suicide for most students). If you fall behind the lecture material by more than a week, chances are good that you're going to fail. Because of the pace

        • You're right, I wasn't a math major, but I was a math minor. I took only the "lowly" calculus courses, along with other similar math courses.

          But what I'd say is, that you are taking your own personal experience with what is apparently a poorly-run math major, and extrapolating it onto the rest of academia. You *assume* that the professors have no choice but to assign large numbers of hours of homework, in order to teach what they need to teach. I would argue that this is a sign of poor curriculum design, ra

          • that you are taking your own personal experience with what is apparently a poorly-run math major,

            That was not a poorly run math major. That's pretty much the standard STEM major experience at the top research universities. That's based on my experience from attending two such universities, talking to faculty, and other students. Hell, even going to graduate school myself. The education is basically driven by homeworks, and students' work with each other. You end up learning at least as much from your peers

            • That's pretty much the standard STEM major experience at the top research universities.

              The fact that it's a common practice, doesn't make it valid. It just makes it the default. Top level universities are just as prone to following conventional wisdom and group-think, as other universities.

              I don't believe homework is wrong or bad, just that heavy homework loads don't produce better results than lighter, smarter homework loads.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by eepok ( 545733 )

        Do consider that we're talking about math at a top-tier research university.

        • Yes, I do consider that point. Sure, in universities, some homework is necessary. But I don't believe that the *volume* of homework is justified.

          My degree is in computer science (before the degree was differentiated as it is today). Many of my peers had to spend long hours completing their programming assignments or research work. I did not. I spent way fewer hours getting my work done, and still sailed through with A's. Those students who needed all that extra time, largely switched to other majors, and th

  • 'No Point' Grading Homework

    So, don't factor homework in the grade. Don't even collect it. Assign it of course. Design the tests to be challenging for someone who has done the homework.

    If students don't do the homework themselves and struggle and learn, they will fail the exam. Problem solved, the unfit won't progress.

    • Re:So, don't factor homework in the grade (Score:4, Insightful)

      by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Sunday October 25, 2026 @08:25PM (#66393026)

      'No Point' Grading Homework

      So, don't factor homework in the grade. Don't even collect it. Assign it of course. Design the tests to be challenging for someone who has done the homework. If students don't do the homework themselves and struggle and learn, they will fail the exam. Problem solved, the unfit won't progress.

      My Calculus professor didn't assign any homework. On the first day of class, he simply handed out a double-sided sheet of paper packed with lists of problems from the textbook, which had the all the answers in the back, and said, "If you don't do every problem listed you probably won't pass the exams and class." I did every problem and the practice helped.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mal-2 ( 675116 )

      The answers should be provided after the due date. If the student failed one or more particular concepts or techniques, why wait until they fail them at an exam to find out? That doesn't mean the instructors need to spend their time checking the homework, it's sufficient for the student to grade their own homework and say "I'm not getting this, I better ask for help".

      • I'd go a step beyond that, the professor should provide his solution, showing his work. Not just an answer.

        The professor for my intro to CS did that. No late homework was accepted. He handed out the code he wrote for the assignment. So even if we did solve the assignment we could see how an expert would have done it.

  • So...

    aren't adequate?

  • I teach post-secondary students and I stopped giving out homework literally years ago. I only do in-class evaluation. This professor found out students use AI just now?

  • It was a satire, not a manual!

  • Missing the point. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Sunday October 25, 2026 @08:10PM (#66393008)

    In our math classes at university the homework was graded. Every week it was 30 questions, 10 points, for every mistake you lose a point.

    Now here's the rub: The answers were in the back of the book along with a complete worked solution. The point of the homework was practice, the point of grading was to make sure the practice was done in literally any form possible. Our math professor flat out said, even if you just go to the back of the book and copy the answer verbatim you'll still be learning something.

    • yep that is the key to it, Rote Learning. The repeated exposure to the workings helps cement it in your head. We had the same in Uni, many of the Math books the full answers with workings were in the back and we were encouraged to use to correct our own work, even final exams in my post grad degree were open book (double edged sword that though as with open book they expect perfection on the answers)

  • Sometimes I wonder if the best way to determine a good path forward is to take all the Slashdot comments, knock off all the sharp corners, and find a sort of average.

    The comments on their own tend to be extremist ("Grading homework is kind of silly anyway", "There's no point to homework", ...). I understand that in modern discourse we use exaggeration as a form of emphasis, but the truth is surely a more moderate expression of the same point.

    If a student uses AI to do their homework for them, and remains ob

  • Teacher comes up with a question that AI will get wrong. Ask the students why it is wrong.

    Ask them what prompt will result in this picture and show the picture.

    • Good luck with that approach. Even if it worked now, by next month, the models will have improved to the point where they no longer get your contrived question wrong any more.

      How about instead, guide the students through thinking exercises in class, instead of loading them down with homework.

      • Not popular to admit this, but in math-heavy studies, the purpose of extensive homework is to "rewire" the  Uni students brain. This rewiring also happens to master carpenters, plumbers & musicians, and is the result of intense long-term effort. Of-course not everyone can clean-and-jerk 400 lbs and not all can solve problems in spherical harmonics. But, W/O  effort/homework no productive output will be generated.

        • How has that "re-wiring" been going, pre-AI? Really well, you say?

          I think not. People today are *not* generally "smarter" than people like me who grew up in the 70s, when homework was less onerous. The huge homework load today's schools place on students, has not had a measurable positive effect on outcomes. In fact, students are *less* college-ready today than they were in past decades, despite the extra homework.

          Children are designed to learn through play, not through drudgery.

  • From the linked story the math professor admits he can't justify telling new students to "go into" the math department
    >>Borcherds stated he no longer knows whether to encourage students to go into the math department, as it seemed five years ago that being a mathematician was one of the safest careers from the AI boom.

  • Important context here is the University of California abandoned SAT/ACT requirements in 2020 and professors have been complaining they're having to teach middle school math to students - so this professor's experience doesn't necessarily generalise

    • The problem is neither new, nor fully related to Covid.

      I had contact with a chemistry professor, 4-year state university, circa 2006. Around 40% of the students in first semester general chemistry were lost to drop or fail. This course was a requirement for all sciences majors, and notably for pre-nursing. Enrollment is constrained by lab section seats.

      The department instituted a qualifying examination, and a zero credit remedial course to give a second chance. The main skills deficits: algebra, and basic s

  • Let's be clear about the nature of education. Before a student reaches a particular level of self-discipline during their formative educatoinal years, homework is assigned because it is an effective mechanism to have them practice the concepts being taught to them, and to do this outside of the structured classroom environment. This activity promotes the crystallization of learning objectives and prepares the student for the next lesson, which builds upon the previous.

    After a student becomes largely self-sufficient, the homework model becomes less about enforcement through grading, and becomes more about preparing the student to manage their own academic development outside of the lectures and office hours. The student goes to class because they understand they NEED to be there to learn, unlike a child who must be TOLD to be there.

    In this regard, whether or not homework is graded, and whether or not a student feels a need to cheat or take shortcuts with homework, is really just a reflection of the student's maturity and sense of responsibility for their own intellectual development. Typically, a professor should not need to police what a student does on their own time; what matters is the ability to certify that a student has met the learning objectives--and that is done through examination.

    So, what I find disturbing is not the question of whether this professor should grade his students' homework, or whether the students are using AI to do their homework for them instead of actually learning the material. As the old adage goes, cheaters are only cheating themselves--at least, that's what I would still like to believe.

    No, what I actually find most disturbing is this apparent disconnect in the professor's views on the future of AI as they pertain to professional mathematics, and the impact of AI use on the education of humanity. He predicts that AI will be better than professional human mathematicians, and I think this belies a deeply mistaken perspective on the purpose of learning and doing mathematics, one that I am extremely surprised that a working professional mathematician would make.

    Even if AI models far exceed the human capacity to prove theorems, will it ever FEEL enjoyment and excitement about doing mathematics? Because if it can't stir something in you, then why do it, and why bother teaching it to others? Why would you ever need to teach another student, if you could just always ask a computer instead? In fact, why will anyone in the future ever need to learn anything, if AI will be the replacement for our brains?

    I am a human being and I feel. I dream, and I love. I love mathematics, and it is not simply the result or the answer that I love, but the entire process. The struggle, the failure, the questioning and working away at it until at last, there is UNDERSTANDING. And the flaw that I see my fellow humans are making, over and over, is this crazy focus on RESULTS. ANSWERS. GOALS. They seem to have forgotten how to enjoy the process of doing things, whether it is the restoration of a classic car, or composing a musical score, or deciding what to cook for dinner.

    I mean, why spend months and months on taking apart a 1957 Buick engine, lovingly cleaning every component, repairing and sometimes manufacturing replacements, and reassembling it? Why, when you can have a new electric car that is far safer and more efficient, with more functions and conveniences? Let me be clear; I don't work on classic cars or have any experience with automotive mechanics. But even from my outsider's perspective, I instantly know, at a visceral level, why they do it. It is for the love of the process; to take this machine and build it with your bare hands so that you have a complete understanding of it; and that this machine is an embodiment of engineering, aesthetics, and a symbolism of the freedom of movement.

    That's what AI will not, and will never, do. It can't fall in love with the process, because to do so is what it means to love learning, and is part of what it means to be human. And for a professor of mathematics to not appreciate this is, to me, very misguided, and does not bode well for the education of future generations.

    • I think the professor is being far more pragmatic. No one in the administration of his university or on the panels that review his grants gives a fraction of a damn whether he feels excitement about what he's doing. They want to see novel results. It's unfortunate, but it's like most other professions in modern times. Do you care if the guy mowing your yard, changing your oil, or for that matter setting your broken arm is truly fulfilled in his job and loves his work, or do you just want competence?

  • ... there is a point in reconsidering homework? calculators didn't make it pointless, nor did internet. it just shifted the focus on more complex or higher level skills.

  • Many said and thought the same about calculators. you just need to adapt to how you check homework and it should be by them showing an understanding of what they have done, if they understand the workings without a prompt or AI in front of them then what tool they used is irrelevant.

  • There were always a few teachers that would not grade homework and have the entire course based off of exams. Homework was just to give people experience so they could learn and pass the exams. A lot of teachers and force it but it doesn't have to be enforced. Should be learning to learn the course material and not just to get a grade. If you passed the class and don't remember anything then that's the issue.

  • ...maybe this is a stupid question but ... who's going to determine if the AI gets it right, eventually?

    Other AI?
    I mean if AI is writing the reports and AI is evaluating the results and announcing "hey we solved it!'...who actually gives a shit at that point? Why would they honestly bother to tell us?

    That seems a short route to Wall-E world where we're just sipping out SUPER GULP 1000s.

    Ironic that the next story my feed is that Chief Economist at Apollo Global determines net benefit so far of all the AI in

  • Long overdue death of homework (Score:3)

    by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Monday October 26, 2026 @12:01AM (#66393230) Homepage

    We didn't use to have so much homework. We did exercises *in class.* Imagine that! It worked just fine. Are students smarter today, because of all the homework they are forced to do? I don't think so.

    Sure, we had a little homework, but nothing like what students face these days. I don't believe that homework is as valuable as society has believe it to be.

    The work of children is play. That's how they really learn. Not be long hours of drudgery.

    • There are actually studies (have been for decades) that show that repetitive homework isn't only not useful, it's actually actively damaging to the learning success.

    • We didn't use to have so much homework. We did exercises *in class.* Imagine that!

      I think you're confusing school and university. No you never did exercises *in class*. You learned theory in class, you did exercises in practical tutorials and homework.

      College is a full time enrolment. You're expected to spend double digits hours per week working at home unless you do a reduced class load. We don't need to abolish homework, we need to abolish the idea that you can piss your way through a degree with no time and effort.

      • I did get a degree, I do know what university is, and how it works.

        Some kinds of college classes do require "homework." I took college level music classes, for example, which required 15 hours or so per week of practice. If I didn't do my practice, the results were evident at my next meeting with my instructor.

        For a different type of work, like, say, a research project. Sure, a student could get AI to do the project. But then a meeting with the professor or GA, or a presentation to the class, or written ans

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by eepok ( 545733 )

      These are not children. These are students at a top-tier research university. They will become doctors, engineers, and career mathematicians.

      Their job is to learn.

      • I'm addressing the larger over-reliance on homework, that's why the reference to children.

        I believe universities also overly rely on homework. Homework is fine, to a point. After that point, it's just make-work.

  • A degree should be about learning, not homework (Score:3)

    by misnohmer ( 1636461 ) on Monday October 26, 2026 @02:07AM (#66393280)
    All of the engineering programs in my school were not allowed to count homework (or lecture or tutorial attendance) towards the final grade, with couple of exceptions in the very first term. Only term projects and exams counted towards the final grade, with an added stipulation that final exam must be worth at least 50% of your grade, and you must pass it (get >50%) or else you fail the class. This worked great. You could never do homework if you wanted, or do it and TA's would grade it for you, as a feedback for the student to help them assess their learning gaps. If you wanted to copy homework from someone else - no problem, copy away. If we had AI back then, it would have been equally pointless to submit AI generated homework.

    Degrees should not be about having completed assigned work, but rather having learned the required material, and hopefully learning how to learn on your own. Sadly somewhere along the way some committees at various post secondary education institutions decided otherwise, which probably explains the low quality of a lot of new-grads I've been encountering in interviews lately, and the fact that they all seem to have graduated with 4.0 GPA (or higher, bonus points for bonus homework???).
    • But how will UC Berkeley haze EE undergrads if not with endless problem sets? Think of the TA's!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by eepok ( 545733 )

      That's very idealist, but not in line with the pragmatic realities of education.

      1. Most people want to HAVE learned, but are unwilling to go through the process of studying and repetition to actually learn.
      2. We set up massive educational system to ENSURE that people learn. Those systems are held accountable when their students DON'T learn.
      3. Checkpoints are set up throughout a curriculum to force students to learn if not for their own sake, then for the sake of a grade that will influence whether to progre

  • WSJ had an article a few weeks ago about AI solving math problems. It was able to solve Navier-Stokes problem because 26 (or was it 21, my memory of the figure is fuzzy) poked in a lot of proofs of smaller problems into something called MathLib. It took them about 2 years (if my memory on that is accurate). Only then was the AI thingy able to solve Navier-Stokes.

    My take is essentially that the AI thingy is not really solving anything in any fundamentally novel way. It still required a lot of human input. Wo

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      26 (or was it 21, my memory of the figure is fuzzy) was 26 or 21 mathematicians.

  • There should be onerous penalties for cheating. And it should be a mandatory report by observer action. Full stop. Weakening of standards and of rigor of intellectual labor decreases institutional excellence and growth of individuals' abilities. This kind of learned helplessness capitulation shouldn't be replicated or allowed to remain.

  • Easy solution then... (Score:3)

    by Targon ( 17348 ) on Monday October 26, 2026 @07:21AM (#66393478)

    Make the students go up and demonstrate their work. Assign homework, then have those students come in and test them in person, possibly showing their work up on a board to show how much or little they understand.

  • The last time I interacted with turnitin, I could easily see its shortcomings. That software is made to look for cheating and plagiarism. That works well for essays, but for math you're looking at a square peg - round hole problem. There are a lot of different ways to write a paragraph on an historical figure. There are only so many ways to solve a given practice math problem. It's easy to show that a history student copy / pasted from wikipedia, it's very difficult to show if a math student came up with the correct math answer on their own or googled it.

    The proper way to asses learning in a math class is a live in-person test. Homework should be for the students to practice their learning, and if they choose to not learn while doing it that will be seen on the exam.
  • Selfpolicing has not worked. We need strong legislation to control AI, and we need Trump gone to do that.

  • If they can't do it with a pen/pencil on paper with no computer they fail.

    • Yep. During my years at Uni I made sure every intro-EE student had a personal copy of SPICE. I advised them SPICE every homework problem .. AFTER they had done a pencil & paper & HP-22 solution. Double gain for  students and SPICE allowed them to build and analyze some really fun circuits.  Of-course during Mid-terms & Final no use of SPICE was allowed.

  • If colleges and universities really cared about graduating intelligent students, there is a simple solution:

    Oral exams

    But most colleges and universities don't care enough. Their job is to churn out graduates.

  • Used to be done for students by the bright kid, now it is done by AI

    it was never a good way of evaluating students ability

  • You can't understand mathematics without doing problem sets on your own. It's not enough to know the proof exists, you need to understand *why* it exists, and *how* it can be used. The same is true for engineering. You gotta do the problem sets, or you will never understand it.

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