this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/9348639

The Generative AI Learning Penalty: Evidence from Chinese Secondary Education

Using 30 months of panel data on 26,811 Chinese students in grades 7-12, we study how generative AI affects homework productivity and learning. The data combine monthly closed-book exams, high-school and college entrance exams, and homework scores and completion time across nine subjects. We exploit staggered AI adoption in a difference-in-differences design. AI adoption raises homework scores by 18% and reduces completion time by 30%, but lowers monthly exam scores by 20% within six months. High-stakes entrance-exam scores fall by 18 and 24%, with the full penalty emerging only after about two years. The losses are largest in social science subjects, followed by STEM and languages, and are especially large for junior students, high-achieving students, and boys. The learning losses are concentrated among roughly 80% of AI users whose behavior is consistent with homework outsourcing, as indicated by exceptionally short homework completion time coupled with high homework scores. AI users who maintain similar homework completion time as non-AI users experience small learning losses.

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[–] Rylo@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Effect is worse in junior high than high school, suggesting uninformed (over)use makes things worse;

I was always under the impression that the cognitive outsourcing is worse the earlier it starts. I am in academia, and a lot of really bright researchers, professors etc are using generative AI tools, but they have spent a good 20-30 years already reading, researching and producing high-quality output already, they are not using it to get away from thinking about hard problems, simply to speed up the process of tackling them.

It is way worse for students. I can only speak for mathematics, but the field is trying to come to gripes with what this whole ordeal will mean, and even then we are at least quite shielded from some of the problems with education (quite easy to expand and assess in-person exams, for instance).

You generally NEED a minimum of 10-20k hours working and thinking about this stuff to understand it at a high level, there are no shortcuts. Now the barrier to be able to put some slop together and pretend you've come up with a result is a lot lower, which is the shortcut many students are going for sadly.

If anyone is interested in the discussion I'll just put some good starters:

https://nitter.net/aaswaminathan01/status/2025418710198960388

https://davidbessis.substack.com/p/the-fall-of-the-theorem-economy

[–] AstroStelar@hexbear.net 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I hold the belief that LLMs are the final nail in the coffin of an results-oriented education model that has become outmoded. I have personally experienced cognitive dissonance between my idealised notion of education and knowledge acquisition on one hand, and on the other the reality of stress, lack of reward for going beyond "good enough" and fear of my perfectionism yet slowness making me unable to catch up.

One way I keep myself from collapsing from all the things to worry about is that I try to focus on a few things I feel passionate about: the future of education is one of them.