Archive for NYT
data science ≠ algebra ???
Posted in Books, Kids, Statistics, University life with tags algebra, calculus, California, data science, high school mathematics, NYT, public universities, The New York Times, USA on September 7, 2023 by xi'an
Doug’s scared…
Posted in Books, Kids, pictures with tags ambigram, ChatGPT, Deep Blue, DeepMind, Douglas Hofstadter, French army, Gödel Escher and Bach, military service, Navy, neural network, Normandy, NYT, The New York Times, youtube on August 1, 2023 by xi'an
Following a link from a NYT editorial, I came upon a transcribed interview of Douglas Hofstadter on his fright about the current nature of AI and in particular of the impact of (surprise, surprise!) ChatGPT. When the French translation of Gödel, Escher, Bach came out in 1985, it became an immediate success, I read it, enjoyed it and recommended to my inner circles. To the point of my superior in the Navy (during the year I was drafted in the French Navy) saw the cover (for I was also reading it in the Navy office!), browsed through it and asked me to… reproduce the sculpture (a 3D ambigram) for the logo of his own company (for he moonlighted several days a week at an hologram company he had created). Which proved rather straightforward (but I ignore if the result was ever exploited). While I am now much less reserved about the book, which I feel is quite pretentious and self-congratulary, without delivering a particularly deep message, I can related to my earlier self excitement when faced with a scientific book involving many themes of interest for me, pleasant and easy to read, if sometimes mired in heavily making a point. This is obviously a personal view and others, like the science vulgariser Marcus du Sautoy launched a celebration for the 40 years of the book. (Coincidence: I had a chat & a beer with a former high school teacher of his’ in Normandy a week before writing this post.)
“it almost feels that way, as if we, all we humans, unbeknownst to us, are soon going to be eclipsed, and rightly so, because we’re so imperfect and so fallible.”
“it feels as if the entire human race is going to be eclipsed and left in the dust soon”
The tone of the interview is hilariously super catastrophic, foreseeing the replacement of humans by their “successors” within a few years, nothing less. There is no deep argument in the discussion, only that AIs are now playing chess and Go better than humans, can provide apparently reasonable answers to many questions, at a speed surpassing human faculties, including poetry or coding. Which proves such a reducing modelling of what constitutes a human being and the meaning of consciousness. (The last line of the interview “YouTube transcript cleaned up by GPT-4 & checked against audio” is hilarious, whether it is intended to be so or not.)
ChomGPT
Posted in Books, pictures, University life with tags AI, ethics, final exam, Jorge Luis Borges, machine learning, morality, Noam Chomsky, NYT, The New York Times on April 1, 2023 by xi'an
I got pointed out at an interesting NTY editorial of March 8, 2023, on ChatGPT written by Noam Chomsky, Ian Roberts and Jeffrey Watumull.
“we fear that the most popular and fashionable strain of A.I. — machine learning — will degrade [linguistics] and debase our ethics by incorporating into our technology a fundamentally flawed conception of language and knowledge.”
Starting with a quote of Jorge Luis Borges, most appropriately for the dystopian prospects brought by the new chatbots. And seeing the arrival of these machines as something trivial that operates in contrast with the human mind by making use of terabytesque amounts of data and (cleverly) extrapolating to suit the question. Which is to state that they are merely (?) much better interfaces at reproducing patterns found in their data bases. This remains a technical feat but given the lack of reliability of their output (cf my exam answers) and the correlated lack of uncertainty in their assessment, they are very much useless at explanations. (But sometimes usefull as typewriting monkeys for recommendation letters.)
“The crux of machine learning is description and prediction; it does not posit any causal mechanisms or physical laws.”
The second part of the tribune points out the amorality of such platforms, unable to reach a moral position. This is illustrated by Q&As about the morality of terraforming an other planet (which I cannot connect with morality if there is no sentient life on that planet). While I see the point as a fundamental distinction between humans and AIs, I would feel uncomfortable with the latter producing moral judgements as this would imply a choice of moral rules in their training, as there is no universal moral ground beyond the “obvious”… (Actually, by presenting arguments in an authoritative manner, rarely with provisions for being wrong or incomplete, ChatGPT is agreeing on lying by omission!)
“Given the amorality, faux science and linguistic incompetence of these systems, we can only laugh or cry at their popularity.”
surveying homelessness
Posted in Books, pictures, Statistics with tags capture-recapture, Census, Continuum of Care, Department of Housing and Urban Development, homeless, HUD, INED, Institut National d'Etudes Démographiques, NYT, The New York Times, undercount, US politics on February 26, 2023 by xi'an
A recent NYT article, entitled “582,462 and Counting“, is describing how the USA Federal Administation is running a yearly survey of homeless people. By sending agents and volunteers in the streets and shelters to get an idea of the magnitude of the problem. The figure of 582,462 was the one produced by HUD (the US Department of Housing and Urban Development) for 2022. In the methodological instructions related to this survey, I could not find any mention of an advanced statistical technique such as capture-recapture. Despite a possible call to statistical software
The next step is to enter data from the survey into a computer program, such as SPSS, SAS, Excel, or the CoCs’ HMIS.
And both undercount and overcount are not formally addressed
CoCs must ensure that during the PIT count homeless persons are only counted once. It is critical that the counting methods be coordinated to ensure that there is no double-counting. Therefore, CoCs must also collect sufficient information to be able to deduplicate the PIT count (i.e. ensure that the same homeless person was not counted more than once.
(where CoC stands for Continuum of Care and PiT Point-in-Time). (I remember discussing homeless surveys in the 1990’s with researchers from INED, albeit they had already launched their survey and would thus be unable to “recapture” interviewees.)
trades of war [bad graph]
Posted in Books, Statistics with tags bad graph, energy crisis, European Solidarity, imports, NYT, Russian invasion, Solidarity with Ukraine, The New York Times, Ukraine on December 6, 2022 by xi'an
