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@JorisMeys@mstdn.social

Post #1618836

2026-04-23 07:38 UTC

Heads up: the new version of @Posit RStudio software (2026.04) has a genAI assistant integrated. It's subscription based, but can be turned off in the settings. It'll be the first time I won't mail the IT department to ask for an update. We'll have to test how easily students can activate their own subscriptions on exam PCs before we even think about updating. If anyone can shed light on enterprise control of settings for this, much appreciated. #RStats #genAI #CodeAssistant #RStudio

Replies (3)

  • @JorisMeys@mstdn.social 2026-04-23 07:40

    PS: if your answer is "students should learn how to use it" then go away. Yes, students do learn how to use it. They should also learn to understand what that system does, and I have to check whether they do. Allowing AI to check understanding is about as stupid as allowing motorcycles to check how fast one can run. With the added unfairness of some students not having money for a motorbike, and others having the fastest model on the market bcs the parents paid for it.

    Open ##1855415

  • @LeoRJorge@mastodon.social 2026-04-23 08:06

    @JorisMeys I've been very annoyed by Posit's extreme pivot to AI, but I hadn't even considered this dimension of the problem! RStudio is the defacto standard IDE for teaching R, and having an AI assistant built-in really makes things pretty difficult not just in an exam context... no one needs one more source of variability and mess while teaching a practical.

    Open ##1855421

  • @q_observations@mstdn.social 2026-04-23 14:30

    @JorisMeys @Posit there is a way to disable features (see https://support.posit.co/hc/en-us/articles/210990438-Disabling-Features-in-the-RStudio-IDE) and the flag for the AI assistant is allow-posit-assistant (see also https://github.com/rstudio/rstudio/issues/17234). But a lot will depend on how much access students will have on the exam PC and what they can change (e.g. the config files).

    Open ##1855422