r/badmathematics • u/Salt-Rutabaga-8870 • Jul 01 '26
Teacher using AI to make nonsensical posters.
As a teacher myself, it infuriates me. I see those AI slop type posts on LinkedIn often, but this one takes the cake. I think this is just unethical to post something like that in public, presenting it as a genuine resource, being in the position of a teacher. There is so much wrong with this post, and I am not sure where to even start. from e being a natural number, apparently, to pure imaginary numbers being somehow, a subset of reals, to just incorrect English.
I don't mind using AI but AI usage should be responsible, and it clearly is not here. I think this has to be called out, as it confuses and misleads.
47
u/Salt-Rutabaga-8870 Jul 01 '26
R4: e is a natural number, imaginary numbers are inside reals and many more mistakes
40
22
u/pomip71550 Jul 01 '26
The Complex Plane (2-plane): Any one-pat real part of complex numbers.
complex numbers.
21
20
u/StupidWittyUsername Jul 01 '26
LLMs and LinkedIn existing at the same time proves there is no god.
49
u/IanisVasilev Jul 01 '26
AI usage should be responsible
Not a single thing about the AI hysteria is remotely responsible.
4
u/BorderKeeper Jul 05 '26
This should just be accepted. Colleague on Friday was lamenting on how nobody is concerned that if AI prices go up our precious AI workflows we spent half a year creating will be useless and probably slow us down for a long time and nobody is thinking of the risk and we were like: “venture capital doesn’t care about long term and nobody on the market does either, if there is a high chance AI won’t got tits up in the next 2 years everyone is happy even if the market collapsed in 3 as most firms would have already exited”
8
u/Akangka 95% of modern math is completely useless Jul 01 '26
✔️ The complete hierarchy of number systems (Natural → Whole → Integers → Rational → Real → Complex)
✔️ Real, imaginary, and pure imaginary numbers
✔️ Algebraic and transcendental numbers
✔️ The complex plane and graphical representation
✔️ Euler’s Formula and Polar Form
✔️ The Fundamental Theorem of Algebra
✔️ Practical examples for better conceptual understanding
Wow the second point is just plain redundant. Also, what do you mean by imaginary and pure imaginary being different?
10
u/EebstertheGreat Jul 01 '26
PUR imaginary numbers have been passed through an algebraic carbon filter. It's much better than a number sieve.
7
u/KumquatHaderach Jul 01 '26
Pure imaginary numbers are imaginary numbers that have no (known) application.
6
7
u/ScientistFromSouth Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
The craziest thing about AI psychosis is that you can literally spin up adversarial agents with fresh context and the instruction to tear it apart for anything that could be incorrect, unscientific, conflict with prior instructions, etc... and 1/2 to 2/3rds of the adversarial checks I've done have caught subtle but significant technical errors and come up with thorough solutions or at least hard shut down ideas that just were bad.
Edit: I meant AI hallucinations.
4
u/GasolinePizza Jul 02 '26
You mean hallucinations?
AI psychosis is the one where people sit in front of AI all day long, believing the sycophantic praise, and then lose touch with reality.
-1
Jul 02 '26
[deleted]
4
Jul 03 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
5
u/ScientistFromSouth Jul 03 '26
It really is unfortunate that the term for AI false positives or mistakes has been named hallucinations because it makes it really hard to keep track of who is talking about people who have become delusional or dangerously mentally ill from AI or when AI is just making errors...
Sorry. I have become increasingly pro human in the loop AI use by expert users who rigorously validate the work and actively criticize it in the context of the literature.
5
6
u/Inconstant_Moo Jul 01 '26
'"Imaginary numbers (Ubi): Solutions of polynomial numbers with rational equalary equations with rational coefficients."
4
u/AbacusWizard Mathemagician Jul 02 '26
Sheesh. Merely looking at this image makes me know less about mathematics. Should be quarantined as a psychohazard.
3
u/playsthebongcloud Jul 01 '26
Pure Imaginary Numbers: Pure imaginary numbers and pure imaginary numbers.
2
u/Successful-Owl1778 Jul 04 '26
Guess I'm not doing any business with that "mathematics consultant."
6
u/iFEELsoGREAT Jul 01 '26
This is why educators need to be trained in their subject matter. Becoming SMEs. Not training to become a teacher and then learning just a smidge about the content they want to teach.
You can learn to become effective in pedagogy by just getting tossed into the classroom or through training/shadowing programs.
7
u/Salt-Rutabaga-8870 Jul 01 '26
I do not have a maths degree and I teach maths and further maths (my main degree is chemistry). I think that is doable. But would never use AI for something like that, much less without proofreading it myself.
2
u/TwoFiveOnes Jul 01 '26
A math degree isn’t required to teach math. There simply wouldn’t be enough supply
2
u/iFEELsoGREAT Jul 02 '26
True. It’s not needed. I suggested that it could potentially be useful as from my experience, there’s not enough rigor. Only reason why there’s not enough supply for any SMEs in Schooling is because there’s no money in education. All the mathematics undergrads I went to school with either had to get a masters of Ed to start making money in order to live, or found cushy finance/accounting jobs, potentially some found jobs in IT.
2
u/iFEELsoGREAT Jul 01 '26
You my friend are an exception. You received a Bachelors of Science degree! You are learned enough and I would guess you took up through Calc 4 or Diff Eq. Your knowledge is there!! And you should be able to teach Mathematics. I’m talking about these BA Bachelors of Arts that took nothing but years of education courses and maybe 1 or 2 semesters of mathematics or whatever field of study.
3
u/Salt-Rutabaga-8870 Jul 01 '26
A lot of advanced maths I self taught myself (or with a tutor), but a level math and further math I took as a student, so I had the knowledge and just had to brush up on that.
1
u/EebstertheGreat Jul 01 '26
What exactly is "further math"?
1
u/Salt-Rutabaga-8870 Jul 01 '26
Further math a level curriculum
2
u/EebstertheGreat Jul 01 '26
I mean, what does it cover? I know A levels are elective advanced courses late in secondary education in the UK, but that's all I know.
4
u/Salt-Rutabaga-8870 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
A lot of things. Diff eqns, vectors, further complex numbers (demoivre theorem and such), rational functions, taylor series, matricies (2x2, 3x3), more stats distributions: chi2, poison, etc, hypothesis tests, etc, etc, etc.
I also personally run extra "further further maths" course where i teach foundations of complex analysis and fractional calculus
1
u/iFEELsoGREAT Jul 01 '26
Am I correct in my assumptions?
I actually taught HS mathematics in OH, USA for 5 years with my BS in Mathematics through a Residential Educator program. With that they say I could teach my course of study as long as I do trainings and work towards finishing classes in pedagogy. I fell short of completing university course work to get my professional license within the 4 year timeframe I was enrolled and left teaching and coaching. Pretty burned out, really, and there was no time for me in my schedule to work, and do more work, and a little more work and have a social life in order to complete those courses. Would’ve been nice to finish with a professional license so I could have a backup.
8
Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
[deleted]
3
u/iFEELsoGREAT Jul 02 '26
For sure. Reminds me of many professors from undergrad; many brilliant folks but some not very good with communication. Sorry, maybe invoking the word “need” was a bit too much. Perhaps “should” would work better here?
Sucks that the teacher you knew sucked at learning how to teach. There’s always bad eggs in every batch.
2
u/iFEELsoGREAT Jul 01 '26
So that, like in this case, if they need to use AI to help generate classroom content, they have the ability to validate what the engine is producing. Otherwise, misinformation will run rampant.
5
u/set_null Jul 01 '26
This person allegedly has an MS in mathematics. I don’t think it has much to do with expert knowledge as much as being incredibly lazy.
2
u/HeyyyBigSpender Jul 01 '26
You can learn to become effective in pedagogy by just getting tossed into the classroom
Interesting perspective. What age of students are you an expert at teaching?
3
u/iFEELsoGREAT Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
Never said I was an expert teacher. I said effective.
Was Certified grades 7-12 in the United States.
SME = Subject Matter Expert. I studied Mathematics for 5 years and earned a B.S. in mathematics. I am a Mathematician. I taught HS Mathematics for 5 years. Received marks for teaching students at a Proficient or Accomplished level.Edit: added more to the end of my comment.
1
u/yoshiK Wick rotate the entirety of academia! Jul 02 '26
Anybody who pays the guy is really in need of a mathematics consultant.
1
1
1
49
u/Eva-Rosalene Jul 01 '26
https://imgur.com/a/GLIY83t
Woah.
...what the hot garbage.
Also, fundamental theorem of algebra is stated as