this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2026
214 points (100.0% liked)
Fuck AI
7560 readers
2029 users here now
"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"
A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yes and no.
Yes, degrees are credentials and sadly many people just want those instead of having any inherent interest.
But no, because those credentials are not empty words, but are supposed to mean something. You might not need to know about the industrial revolution in your job (and looking at the way our world develops right now, I would say industrial revolution and its changes in society are very relevant right now), but the credential for it is supposed to show that you are able to learn about a topic, read relevant literature and then apply that knowledge in analysing things. THAT is the goal of going to college. And most jobs (edit: that really require a certain college degree) need exactly that kind of skill. Which students don't learn if they let a probability machine do the "thinking" for them.
Right, they're supposed to mean something
No, that's the point of the credential for the employer. For the student, the credential is just a box you need to check that lets employers filter out the people they don't want, and why would the student give a shit about that?
That's what I said?
Because if the job really needs those skills than that student better learns fast or is fucked and will lose the job.
No, what you said is that the credentials are supposed to mean something, as if they mean something to everyone equally.
They don't. They only mean something to the employer, to the student they mean time and money but not much else. For the student the point of the credential is to trick your employer into hiring you, and then you just have to keep tricking them into not firing you. People do it all the time, and they're a pain to work with, but in that way cheating is training them for their career.
Now you're right that there are real jobs, where being able to learn actually matters, but a lot of jobs are bullshit. A business major that's going to fail upwards their entire lives will never need to learn anything. They could probably be illiterate and get away with it.
These comments seem to be rooted in a jaded perspective of the world.
For instance if you didn’t have a degree in say material sciences, I wouldn’t hire you to work on plasma containment engineering for a fusion reactor. And if you felt your degree in the field was meaningless, then why are you trying to get into this field where you had to put so much effort into getting into it?