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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

#61

Post by kamaal »

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…

>> AI simply isn't a field that's deep or broad enough to warrant an entire college with a handful of distinct majors, like an engineering college or medical school.

I guess by this move their goal is to now make it deep enough.

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

#62

Post by eli_gottlieb »

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…

>Yet I can't imagine why an entire 'college' of AI is needed. AI simply isn't a field that's deep or broad enough to warrant an entire college with a handful of distinct majors, like an engineering college or medical school. Each of this college's AI degrees will span distinct problem or solution spaces? Not likely.

Depends which departments/courses they're assimilating. Course 6 is computer science that holds CSAIL, course 9 is Brain and Cognitive Sciences that holds cognitive science, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience. CBMM encompasses everything from probabilistic programming to deep neural nets to classical computer vision.

I think that if they take some of the more exciting but empirically rooted stuff from CBMM and build up a department that can actually train students for it in-depth, that will be a significant improvement in training tracks available to people now. Computational neuroscience, theoretical neuroscience, computational cognitive science, machine learning, statistical learning theory, etc all remain small specialties within larger fields when taken alone, but when put together really deserve to have their connections considered as potentially forming the foundations for a single field.

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

#63

Post by tatehhewwot »

_ux1n wrote: post #54

I'm conflicted on this. On one hand, academic donations are always great. On the other hand, Stephen Schwarzman has a record of giving large donations in exchange for naming rights. He gave $150 million to Yale to renovate the main campus center, called "Commons," into the "Schwarzman Center." He gave $25 million to his high school in exchange for naming rights bordering on autocracy, including having his portrait ap…

So deep, bro.

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

#64

Post by visarga »

Puer wrote: post #29
sjg007 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure MIT offers stats and linear algebra.

I don't doubt it and I don't doubt that M.I.T. will create an intensive AI college. My point was that a lot of universities, even distinguished ones, are recognizing that there's a real demand and hype for "AI/Data Science" degrees and in an effort to maximize enrollment and appeal they often minimize the mathematical and statistical requirements. I don't believe that you need an advanced degree to become a component…

> component ML engineer

Did you mean 'competent ML engineer'

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

#65

Post by eli_gottlieb »

_ux1n wrote: post #54

I'm conflicted on this. On one hand, academic donations are always great. On the other hand, Stephen Schwarzman has a record of giving large donations in exchange for naming rights. He gave $150 million to Yale to renovate the main campus center, called "Commons," into the "Schwarzman Center." He gave $25 million to his high school in exchange for naming rights bordering on autocracy, including having his portrait ap…

>To me, Schwarzman's donations reveal just how much of culture and history is straight up bought and paid for. If you have enough money, no matter how you actually live your life and what you do, you can just pay the right people or institutions, and you will be forever remembered as a good person. Remember that.

MIT already has a Charles Koch building.

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

#66

Post by eli_gottlieb »

adenadel wrote: post #23
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya, also Noam Chomsky, who has a bit of infamy, is an MIT professor of linguistics.

Interesting that you choose to remark on Chomsky's political views rather than the fact that he is one of the most influential (and highly cited) academics in modern history.

He's also notorious in linguistics for heckling anyone who proposes an approach other than universal generative grammar.

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

#67

Post by robotresearcher »

_ux1n wrote: post #54

I'm conflicted on this. On one hand, academic donations are always great. On the other hand, Stephen Schwarzman has a record of giving large donations in exchange for naming rights. He gave $150 million to Yale to renovate the main campus center, called "Commons," into the "Schwarzman Center." He gave $25 million to his high school in exchange for naming rights bordering on autocracy, including having his portrait ap…

This is normal. The Rhodes scholarships you compare with were themselves funded by Cecil Rhodes’ dirty fortune made in Southern Africa: Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.

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

#68

Post by ausbah »

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 are trying to integrate rather than a new "College of AI".

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

#69

Post by netcan »

Puer wrote: post #13
corndoge wrote: post #9

College of Statistics and Nonlinear Function Approximation

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…

Compared to what?

Generally, the traditional university model has been adding " program" for a long time, whether or not they have a useful curriculum to put students through.

There are office management and msft liscencing degrees. The most popular degree (at least where I live) for both undergraduate and graduates are various generic "business degrees."

In practice, universities have curriculums for accounting, finance and ecocomics.

There is no curriculum for social media or digital growth hacking. There are job titles. There are students who want to enroll. Employers are asking for these graduates (in theory, graf salaries for these are low). Politicians are willing to fund them...

Does a bachelors of social media businessing serve a student 10, 20, 30 years later?

So, will these ml/ai these programs really produce better graduates than maths, statistics or CS programs? Dunno. I'll wager that they're a whole lot better than business stuff degrees.

I'd actually wager that MIT will put students through decent statistics classes. Hopefully they'll also have them write a decent amount of code too.

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

#70

Post by mturmon »

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…

"...AI simply isn't a field that's deep or broad enough..."

Its ultimate subject is how to make machines think as well as brains think. Arguably, brains are the thing that distinguish homo sapiens from other animals, and we don't know how brains can be engineered or how such devices can be made efficient and accurate.

If you conceptualize that math/engineering/biology/philosophy question holistically, it is definitely worth an independent college.

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