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Elements of AI course to be made available in all EU languages

elementsofai.com

91–100 of 103 posts

Re: Elements of AI course to be made available in all EU languages

#91
post #84

The comments here are surprisingly negative. So many wet blankets, from people saying the offering sucks to people mistakenly complaining about it being EU-only to someone saying it empowers just white europe. I wonder how many people criticizing it even planned on trying this completely-free course. I think we really need to work on pulling the plug on this fetishization of contrarianism as a community.

A lot of Finnish taxpayers' money was spent developing it. I think it's fair to criticize its shortcomings openly.

Uninformed nonsense.

Its Finnish EU PRESIDENCY, which means it's paid by the EU budget.

Each EU country holds the rotating EU presidency for six months, which means they chair interministerial meetings, formally negotiate and propose compromise legal texts, etc. In this role the presidency receives a budget for promotional events, communication efforts, etc. The Finnish presidency decided to use part of the budget for this translation effort.

This seems to fit various EU goals well, eg to upskill the population, promote digital competences and encourage use of all 24 EU languages. Think of just the added value of having common terminology and definitions.

Re: Elements of AI course to be made available in all EU languages

#92
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of Finnish taxpayers' money was spent developing it. I think it's fair to criticize its shortcomings openly.

Uninformed nonsense. Its Finnish EU PRESIDENCY, which means it's paid by the EU budget. Each EU country holds the rotating EU presidency for six months, which means they chair interministerial meetings, formally negotiate and propose compromise legal texts, etc. In this role the presidency receives a budget for promotional events, communication efforts, etc. The Finnish presidency decided to use part of the budget fo…

Apologies I realise the start of my comment is a bit harsh. I do find out really frustrating to see people many up facts and half-truths as they go along.

Re: Elements of AI course to be made available in all EU languages

#93
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of Finnish taxpayers' money was spent developing it. I think it's fair to criticize its shortcomings openly.

Uninformed nonsense. Its Finnish EU PRESIDENCY, which means it's paid by the EU budget. Each EU country holds the rotating EU presidency for six months, which means they chair interministerial meetings, formally negotiate and propose compromise legal texts, etc. In this role the presidency receives a budget for promotional events, communication efforts, etc. The Finnish presidency decided to use part of the budget fo…

The course was developed quite some time ago by the University of Helsinki with their funds. It's a public university like all Finnish universities, meaning it is funded by taxes.

What's news here is the translation job to translate it to multiple European languages. It takes an additional 1,7 million € and is funded solely by the Ministry of Employment and the Economy of Finland.

I failed to find any claims of EU funding any part of the original development or this translation job. The Finnish Ministry of Employment calls this course a gift from Finland to the European Union. What's your source on this being EU funded?

Re: Elements of AI course to be made available in all EU languages

#94
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of Finnish taxpayers' money was spent developing it. I think it's fair to criticize its shortcomings openly.

Uninformed nonsense. Its Finnish EU PRESIDENCY, which means it's paid by the EU budget. Each EU country holds the rotating EU presidency for six months, which means they chair interministerial meetings, formally negotiate and propose compromise legal texts, etc. In this role the presidency receives a budget for promotional events, communication efforts, etc. The Finnish presidency decided to use part of the budget fo…

For the record, here is the press release about it from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland: https://tem.fi/en/article/-/asset_publisher/suomi-investoi-e...

Quote from the press release: The cost of the initiative, a total of 1 679 000 euros, will be funded from the budget of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland.

Re: Elements of AI course to be made available in all EU languages

#96

Why is Turkish (one of the two national languages of Cyprus, one of the recognised minority languages in BiH) missing?

Turkish is not an official language of the EU.

Not every national language of EU member states is an EU official language. Luxembourgish and Turkish are national languages of Luxembourg and Cyprus respectively but are not EU official languages.

EU official languages are specified by the EU treaties. In cases of enlargement, they are negotiated between the EU and the acceding state. When Cyprus joined the EU, Cyprus and the EU agreed that Turkish would not be added to the list of EU official languages.

(Also, the fact that Turkish is a minority language in BiH is of little relevance. BiH is not an EU member state, and most minority languages of EU member states are not EU official languages either.)

Re: Elements of AI course to be made available in all EU languages

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Sure, it would be nice with more languages, but if someone from germany/france/spain want's to learn study AI, isn't it probable that they are used to reading english anyway?

You would think that, but I've seen Germans with a PhD that don't speak English. Once a language is large enough, most things get translated into that language (as there is a market for it). Anyway, German and French are large enough, Dutch isn't.

Seriously, I do not want to read German or French source code. Please write all your code and documentation in English.

And while you are at it, why not read the material in English in the first place? That way you are using the correct terminology.

My mother tongue is Dutch, and all my systems run in English. The silly words people come up with translating things to their own language is weird and confusing. I remember Excel having Dutch translations for their functions. WTF!?!?! Try to guess the Dutch version of things you already know.

You are working in the technology industry, learn English! (not directed at the above poster :))

Re: Elements of AI course to be made available in all EU languages

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would think that, but I've seen Germans with a PhD that don't speak English. Once a language is large enough, most things get translated into that language (as there is a market for it). Anyway, German and French are large enough, Dutch isn't.

I've never encountered a single AI or CS paper translated to or written in German. You may not need to speak English for a PhD in, say, law, but you can't be a competent computer scientist only knowing German.

People from other discipline may want to learn IA. Say for example someone majoring in linguistics that wants to do some NLP. And in this case, English proficiency may not be a requirement in his curriculum. Tons of researchers did and are doing their career in Europe without using much English.

Re: Elements of AI course to be made available in all EU languages

#100
post #58

Well.. it is nice, I guess, but really dumbed down version in my opinion to actually be of practical use. Sure it's great publicity for Reaktor and Finland and whatnot, but I'm dubious of its actual benefits. Teaching basic statistics would be much more useful than "AI", but I guess it lacks the hype factor so marketing-wise it wouldn't just be as cool. It's as if there wasn't enough of snake oil salesman promoting t…

I don't disagree with you, except for the part about actual benefits, it might be true for the general "hacker news crowd", but anything that makes people understand statistics slightly better is good in my book.

If it takes hype, advertising and buzz-words to do that, I'm ok with that.

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