Reminds me of a certain novel I read about few years back where certain people would become living calculators through some kind of chemical intervention. Losing all personality in the process they'd become incredibly productive savants capable of sifting through an ever increasing volume of data.
Under AI’s Watchful Eye, China Wants to Raise Smarter Students (2019) [video]
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Re: Under AI’s Watchful Eye, China Wants to Raise Smarter Students (2019) [video]
#12Reminds me of a certain novel I read about few years back where certain people would become living calculators through some kind of chemical intervention. Losing all personality in the process they'd become incredibly productive savants capable of sifting through an ever increasing volume of data.
Guessing you're also excited for December 18? ;)
Re: Under AI’s Watchful Eye, China Wants to Raise Smarter Students (2019) [video]
#13Reminds me of a certain novel I read about few years back where certain people would become living calculators through some kind of chemical intervention. Losing all personality in the process they'd become incredibly productive savants capable of sifting through an ever increasing volume of data.
Guessing you're also excited for December 18? ;)
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Re: Under AI’s Watchful Eye, China Wants to Raise Smarter Students (2019) [video]
#14Here's a more complete story:
https://qz.com/1742279/a-mind-reading-headband-is-facing-bac...
Seems that the headbands were donated to a school by a US startup that put them on the market as a consumer product, probably targeting China's 'tiger' mothers; that people protested, and the authorities banned them.
The video says "this school is using" and while it sounds like an generic example, it's actually ONE school, using for a short period of time a product donated by a US startup.
Re: Under AI’s Watchful Eye, China Wants to Raise Smarter Students (2019) [video]
#15Training kids like this reminds me of training AI itself: Make the reward getting a better grade and the kid will only optimize for that. Eventually the kid (the agent) will be out in the wild and they will have a weak understanding of what the reward is and how to optimize for it (it will be harder for a fine-tuned kid to do domain adaptation towards different and more abstract fields and problems).
There’s another side to this issue too: Professors themselves are often optimizing their content for testability, rather than for providing actual, functional lifelong knowledge.
> Professors themselves are often optimizing their content for testability, rather than for providing actual, functional lifelong knowledge.
Hah! I think you have this backwards. Most professors are quite concerned about imparting knowledge when the vast majority of the students simply want a piece of paper with the University's logo on it.
I knew of very few professors in electrical engineering or computer science who tried to optimize for "testability".
Re: Under AI’s Watchful Eye, China Wants to Raise Smarter Students (2019) [video]
#16as an autodidac that did extremely poorly in school, but flourished when people FINALLY left me alone and let me concentrate on what I am interested in: I could not imagine what kind of hell this would be. For a lot of the population School sucks and is a waste of time.
What did you succeed in?
Re: Under AI’s Watchful Eye, China Wants to Raise Smarter Students (2019) [video]
#17Because micromanaging people is how you get more Feynmans and Shannons.
Bengio, Hinton, and Lecun were pariahs for decades, until all of the sudden they were rock stars.
I feel so bad for the 1.3bn people living under this. If we're not careful its going to keep creeping into the West and creativity will suffer.
Edit: removed profanity
Re: Under AI’s Watchful Eye, China Wants to Raise Smarter Students (2019) [video]
#18Because micromanaging people is how you get more Feynmans and Shannons. Bengio, Hinton, and Lecun were pariahs for decades, until all of the sudden they were rock stars. I feel so bad for the 1.3bn people living under this. If we're not careful its going to keep creeping into the West and creativity will suffer. Edit: removed profanity
> I feel so bad for the 1.3bn people living under this bullshit.
So the WSJ succeeded in its purpose of spreading anti-Chinese propaganda. Wow, so easy. Check a more complete story here:
https://qz.com/1742279/a-mind-reading-headband-is-facing-bac...
EDIT: less snarky. Please pay attention, I have the feeling that Western media are building an anti-China sentiment because the West (the US in particular) feels threatened by China's economic and technological growth. Criticism of China is fine and due, but let's avoid being tricked by the media (of both sides) in re-aligning with our own tribes. This is the way conflicts are prepared and started. We need understanding, diplomacy and cooperation, not anger and sabre-rattling.
Re: Under AI’s Watchful Eye, China Wants to Raise Smarter Students (2019) [video]
#19Everyone's focusing on the pressure this adds but that seems largely due to cultural factors. Of course students feel more pressured if the data is primarily used to criticize them. But what about evaluating the teachers ability to keep students focused on a task? Or evaluating if a new medication is making a difference for a student with ADHD? As a side note, it seems like lazy journalism to not seek out more commentary from people involved in the project. Their expert was a random Neuroscientist from San Fransisco for gods sake, they could at least have explained why they found his particular criticism worthwhile but they never even establish if he's familiar with the specific work being done in China. If the research is being done in China and the tech is bespoke to the research program in China it's weird to prioritize input from American researchers without some degree of explanation is all I'm saying.
Re: Under AI’s Watchful Eye, China Wants to Raise Smarter Students (2019) [video]
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s another side to this issue too: Professors themselves are often optimizing their content for testability, rather than for providing actual, functional lifelong knowledge.
> Professors themselves are often optimizing their content for testability, rather than for providing actual, functional lifelong knowledge. Hah! I think you have this backwards. Most professors are quite concerned about imparting knowledge when the vast majority of the students simply want a piece of paper with the University's logo on it. I knew of very few professors in electrical engineering or computer science w…
The choice of using the word professor, seems misleading to me. Far more often teachers will adjust their content to ensure optimal performance in tests. Especially in a education system like this.
I can only imagine what side effects this must have for motivation. When you are cautiously trying to appear focused, can you even develop a passion for a subject?