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M.I.T. Plans College for Artificial Intelligence, Backed by $1B

nytimes.com

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Re: M.I.T. Plans College for Artificial Intelligence, Backed by $1B

#101

Post by jmmcd »

perennate wrote: post #99
randcraw wrote: post #46

This sounds like a direct response to two things (mostly): 1) CMU establishing a 'department' of AI (where MIT had merely an AI track within the CS program), and 2) Kai-Fu Lee's recent book on the rise and inevitable domination by China of all things AI-related -- inviting a new 'space race' between the superpowers. (A 'brain race'?) Yet I can't imagine why an entire 'college' of AI is needed. AI simply isn't a field…

MIT's news article [1] has more concrete information. The NYT article is a bit misleading. It is a College of Computing, not College of AI. Also note that MIT has Schools (School of Engineering, School of Science, etc.), not Colleges; so this will be something different. For example, according to MIT's FAQ [2], EECS Department will likely continue to be part of School of Engineering, even as it becomes part of Colleg…

I think the NYT headline is at fault here. College of Computing makes more sense than of AI. You can't put CSAIL inside a College of AI, for a start.

Re: M.I.T. Plans College for Artificial Intelligence, Backed by $1B

#102

Post by perennate »

ausbah wrote: post #68

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand I think its great that the humanities are getting increased support in general, and a sort of "upgrade" with more focus on integrating more statistical and analysis techniques / technologies. But on the downside this seems to only fuel the hype bubble around "AI". I'd rather see existing departments and courses get updated with the technologies and techniques they a…

> I'd rather see existing departments and courses get updated with the technologies and techniques they are trying to integrate rather than a new "College of AI".

That seems very close to the goal of this new College of Computing (it's not "College of AI") stated in MIT's FAQ [1]:

> As MIT’s senior leaders have engaged with faculty and departments across campus, many have spoken of how their fields are being transformed by modern computational methods — specifically, by access to large data sets and the tools to learn from them. Some of the most exciting new work in fields like political science, economics, linguistics, anthropology, and urban studies — as well as in various disciplines in science and engineering — is being made possible when advanced computational capabilities are brought to these fields.

> The key connector of the College to MIT’s five schools with be the 25 “bridge” faculty: joint faculty appointments linking the College with departments across MIT. With this new structure, MIT aims to educate students who are “bilingual” — adept in computing, as well as in their primary field. The College will also connect with the rest of MIT through its work to develop shared computing resources — infrastructure, instrumentation, and technical staffing.

The FAQ says that this unit is named College instead of School (i.e., in contrast to MIT's School of Engineering, School of Science, etc.) precisely because it is meant to "work with and across all five of MIT’s existing schools".

[1] http://news.mit.edu/2018/faq-mit-stephen-schwarzman-college-...

Re: M.I.T. Plans College for Artificial Intelligence, Backed by $1B

#104

Post by cinjon »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #79

I wish top-rated institutions stopped pretending "AI" means "the last 6 years in statistical machine learning". But I guess we all have our pet peeves, eh?

To be clear, MIT very much does not pretend that. It's only recently hired people on that track and has only 4-5 professors in total in that regard.

Re: M.I.T. Plans College for Artificial Intelligence, Backed by $1B

#105

Post by Eridrus »

mr_overalls wrote: post #35
Puer wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, I think statistics will continue to be under-appreciated. All of my mathematics professors in undergraduate said that statistics and linear algebra are the two most useful fields of math to know and that dedicating time to studying them will pay dividends. It still surprises me when I apply for jobs today how few places, even financial or scientific firms, distinguish between statistics and mathematics…

How important is optimization? Like a lot of engineers I know, I took a few required courses in undergrad on linear algebra and stats. But I've never studied optimization. And I see it come up all the time on lists of central theory for ML & AI. . . Is there a classic textbook on the subject? Are there any free online courses that are considered good? https://www.coursera.org/courses?query=optimization

Optimization as a tool is important and widely used, but... almost everything grabbing headlines uses some form of SGD + Momentum. Very little of the actual progress comes from better optimization.

Re: M.I.T. Plans College for Artificial Intelligence, Backed by $1B

#106

Post by soared »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #98
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #79

I wish top-rated institutions stopped pretending "AI" means "the last 6 years in statistical machine learning". But I guess we all have our pet peeves, eh?

I wish top-rated institutions stoped pretending "Physics" means "the last 6 years in Electricity/Chemistry/etc..." - Someone circa 18-hundred-something shrugs The two things people dislike the most, the way things are, and when they change.

> The two things people dislike the most, the way things are, and when they change.

If this was slightly reworded I would love this quote. Is this from somewhere?

Re: M.I.T. Plans College for Artificial Intelligence, Backed by $1B

#107

Post by fsloth »

Invictus0 wrote: post #87

I'm quite skeptical of the interdisciplinary approach. We already know that it's possible to create useful neural networks without any "preprogramming", i.e., creating AlphaGo zero without beginning with any knowledge of Go. An interdisciplinary approach seems backward in that it premises that we need to know something about the problem before we can build the tools to find the solution. That's increasingly not the c…

Um, how do you know what problems are important without deep understanding of the other fields? Or what answers even make sense?

Re: M.I.T. Plans College for Artificial Intelligence, Backed by $1B

#109

Post by handsomechad »

soared wrote: post #106
ryanmarsh wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish top-rated institutions stoped pretending "Physics" means "the last 6 years in Electricity/Chemistry/etc..." - Someone circa 18-hundred-something shrugs The two things people dislike the most, the way things are, and when they change.

> The two things people dislike the most, the way things are, and when they change. If this was slightly reworded I would love this quote. Is this from somewhere?

how would you reword it?

Re: M.I.T. Plans College for Artificial Intelligence, Backed by $1B

#110

Post by clintonb »

mattferderer wrote: post #59
randcraw wrote: post #46

This sounds like a direct response to two things (mostly): 1) CMU establishing a 'department' of AI (where MIT had merely an AI track within the CS program), and 2) Kai-Fu Lee's recent book on the rise and inevitable domination by China of all things AI-related -- inviting a new 'space race' between the superpowers. (A 'brain race'?) Yet I can't imagine why an entire 'college' of AI is needed. AI simply isn't a field…

MIT was one of the earliest leaders in sharing course material online for free. I wish they would take that $1 billion & invest it in modernizing online education. If you want to be a leader in AI, I argue you should open your doors to as many applicants as possible from all over the world at an affordable price. Discover a better way to improve collaboration & online learning. EdX & Coursera are nice but they seem t…

MIT and Harvard are co-founders of edX. What about edX is half-hearted?

* I'm an MIT alum and former edX engineer.

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