[username223]

There's no way I could say what percentage of my schooling was "actual learning" versus assessment or "busywork." The modern obsession with standardized testing and constant measurement has certainly made things worse.

I disagree that "ability to grade said learning is never used again." Stack-ranking is very much a thing; the grading just gets fuzzier.

What the article points to is that, when a teacher gives an assignment meant to encourage students to think and learn, e.g. picking themes out of a novel, most students completely miss the point, instead getting an LLM to generate words in the shape of a student essay. They're crippling their future selves to save some time.

What would I do if I were a teacher? My impulse would be to make all assignments ungraded or pass/fail. Students could choose to learn or cheat as much as they liked. But then their grades would depend upon a midterm and a final, either oral or written in-person. For the ones who had been cheating their way along, the midterm would hopefully be a wake-up call, and they could redeem themselves on the final.