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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3487 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 27, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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AI may invert the common wisdom that studying English is worthless and studying computer science is the wise decision. If AI takes off as anticipated, employers will look for word people who are trained in analyzing prompt replies, using specified and nuanced language, and consuming hundreds of pages of written text per day. English and history students would be great at this.

Will they? I can see some of those skills transferring, but the patterns of behavior and the quirks and nuances that AI have are going to differ from those that a traditional English student is going to be used to. I would think that a healthy amount of computer science would help understand the underlying mechanisms of AI and thus have a better idea of how and why it misbehaves when it does and how to adjust prompts to fix that.

I expect that the value of an English degree will go up, but not enough to surpass that of a CS degree, since the value of those will also go up. Probably the best case would be people who double majored in English and CS, but I believe those are rare.

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