I think the answer to the professor's dismay is quite simple. Many people are in university to survive a brutal social darwinist economic system, not to learn and cultivate their minds. Only a very small handful of them were ever there to study Euler angles earnestly. The rest view it as a hoop they have to jump through to hopefully get a job that might as well be automated away by AI anyway.
Also viewed from a conditional reinforcement perspective, all the professor has to do is start docking grade points from students who are obviously cheating. Theory predicts they will either stop doing it, or get so good at it that it becomes undetectable-possibly an in-demand skill for the future.
I agree, it's weird for parents to say, "Jump through these hoops, and for every dollar you earn grinding sesame for some company, we'll give you an additional two."
Working and educating yourself is decent and dignified, no? Is this a bad deal?
> Working and educating yourself is decent and dignified, no?
I think that depends radically on the nature of the work. I hold a BS in Computer Science but am at an organization that requires me to use LLMs as part of my performance evaluation; I could protest, but it puts my immigration status at risk (my employer has sponsored me into my current country). I view the things asked of me (using LLMs) as degrading, but I'm unable to effectively protest that despite being well-regarded as an engineer (by peers and past employers) and credentialed (BS in CS).
Put differently, most people do A Job because they need to put food on the table. One of my partners used to work in the veterinary field, which took an immense physical toll on them. They're much happier being (f)unemployed currently, being able to work in the garden and make good food and produce art, but our finances are suffering for it; they're hunting for jobs, but most of the current openings are pretty bad in terms of work/life balance and future opportunity.
Working is not inherently necessary; in our current economic system it's exploitatively-required in order to live any sort of decent and dignified life, and there's loads of stories about people who work but aren't treated with dignity (thru healthcare or housing or food strife).
Nit pick: He's not a professor, just a grad student at the same place he got his undergrad, and he's mostly gone to university during covid. At least per his page here: https://claytonwramsey.com/about/
Its not like professors get real training either, but the guy doesn't seem to have gotten any real pedagogy.
I guess that I'm driving at that this guy is awfully young and the essay was a hot take. We should judge it accordingly.
