Modern-Day Oracles or Bullshit Machines?
Jevin West (@jevinwest.bsky.social) and I have spent the last eight months developing the course on large language models (LLMs) that we think every college freshman needs to take.
thebullshitmachines.com— Carl T. Bergstrom (@carlbergstrom.com) February 4, 2025 at 11:12 AM
Haven’t had a chance to go through the course myself, but its designers have a good reputation, and it seems like it might be a useful tool for sharing…
This is not a computer science course.
It’s a humanities course about how to learn and work and thrive in an AI world.
Neither instructor nor students need a technical background. Our instructor guide provides a choice of activities for each lesson that will easily fill an hour-long class.— Carl T. Bergstrom (@carlbergstrom.com) February 4, 2025 at 11:12 AM
The entire course is available freely online. Our 18 online lessons each take 5-10 minutes; each illuminates one core principle.
They are suitable for self-study, but have been tailored for teaching in a flipped classroom. thebullshitmachines.com/table-of-con…— Carl T. Bergstrom (@carlbergstrom.com) February 4, 2025 at 11:12 AM
The course is a sequel of sorts to our course (and book) Calling Bullshit. We hope that like its predecessor, it will be widely adopted worldwide.
Large language models are both powerful tools, and mindless—even dangerous—bullshit machines. We want students to explore how to resolve this dialectic.— Carl T. Bergstrom (@carlbergstrom.com) February 4, 2025 at 11:12 AM
Educational PSA: <em>A New Course on ‘The Bullshit Machines’</em>Post + Comments (55)