Are you using AI - and how?

[Random8145]

I'm not familiar with the specifics of Stanford's CS program.

Having said that, elite programs aren't about leaving out information. It's the difference between learning from people who used cutting edge search algorithms for Google and encryption to protect sensitive information for large businesses vs. a career professor teaching you stuff he learned 20 years ago in graduate school and writes just enough papers to keep his job.

You will also learn that 20 year old stuff in a top program, but it's not the culminating topic of the curriculum.

As an example, scholars were teaching the heliocentric model long before it became common accepted knowledge.

More to the point: AI isn't going to return answers on anything that is cutting edge, it only returns mainstream knowledge. And the real danger is that it will tell you ground breaking research is wrong.

Education is about developing a deeper understanding about a topic. AI can only explain the understanding that already exists.

OTOH though, the career professor may have refined their methods of teaching to be razor sharp, whereas the professor in the top program who did cutting edge research may not have the first clue how to go about teaching their field and sometimes it isn't even the professor that teaches at such schools, it is a TA. So more lowly-seeming teaching-oriented schools can give great education.

For example, if you are studying aerospace engineering and have to take a difficult course on thermodynamics, the guy (or gal!) who's been teaching it for thirty years might give you a far better understanding of it than the guy who helped design the F-22 Raptor and has various security clearances and is one of the Pentagon's go-to people on the subject but is otherwise totally inept at how to teach their knowledge.