I tried out Coursera to expand my writing skills and what a shitshow it is. You have to write peer reviews to advance, so I got either a single "Good" comment on what should be a well thought out answer, or content that was AI generated. You have the ability to opt in or out of AI reviews, but when your classmates are using ChatGPT or phoning it in on their feedback, there's no point either way. Their 'Coach' AI feedback makes me feel like I'm in a new dystopian hell, with only bland, semi-accurate information. The tips it gives are genuinely unhelpful - like asking for more exposition and sensory details on a scene that's only 200 words, or suggesting "showing, not telling" on a subject I never brought up in the story. Trying to contact anyone to give feedback is another level of hell, where I ran circles around a user-hostile UI until I settled for 'Help' information that doesn't answer any questions. I tried bringing up the peer review issue in a forum, where a mentor answered who clearly didn't understand the issue, and of course I can't reply to them to clarify. All that said and a whole lot more unsaid, the course material is great. I genuinely enjoyed that, but I get nothing from the assignments if I'm not getting accurate feedback. It's either peer review that isn't held to any standard, or AI LLM garbage that's more demotivating than helpful. It feels like being trapped in a game where I'm not sure who's real or if anything I do matters.
