16 ms·

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

560 points by superfx 8y ago

supahfly_remix 8y ago
> The college, Ms. Nobles said, offers the possibility of a renewal for humanities studies at M.I.T., where students flock to computer science and engineering. Do MIT students major in humanities subjects, or is the department's purpose to make engineering students well-rounded through taking electives in their department?
- nhf 8y ago
  Both. Undergrads have certain humanities requirements to fulfill - obviously some are natural fans, others treat it like an "eat your broccoli" requirement. Independent of requirements, MIT also has a fairly good reputation for philosophy, political science, linguistics, media studies, and a few other areas.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Ya, also Noam Chomsky, who has a bit of infamy, is an MIT professor of linguistics.
    - adenadel 8y ago
      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.
      - eli_gottlieb 8y ago
        He's also notorious in linguistics for heckling anyone who proposes an approach other than universal generative grammar.
      - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
        I’m pretty neutral on Chomsky’s politics. I’m only pointing out that he is controversial as any good liberal arts professor should be. That being said, his LAD and UG theories have mostly not been useful, as we’ve seen to have done better with....ML (ironically enough).
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - btashton 8y ago
      Last year he took a position at Arizona.
      - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
        He is still an emeritus professor at MIT.
- raoulj 8y ago
  You can major in humanities at MIT, albeit it's somewhat uncommon.
  - reuven 8y ago
    I'm an MIT alumnus ('92). A friend of mine specifically went to MIT to study political science, because of the high-quality faculty and the very small number of students majoring in it. He was one of four majors our year, and got to know the professors very well. He had a blast.
- madcaptenor 8y ago
  It is possible to major in humanities subjects at MIT but it's rather rare. See the statistics at https://registrar.mit.edu/stats-reports/majors-count https://registrar.mit.edu/stats-reports/majors-count .
- kgilpin 8y ago
  Last year, 90 degrees in the Humanities were awarded by MIT out of a total of 3,490. This presumably includes double majors. The largest subcategory was Economics, which is considered a humanity subject at MIT. https://registrar.mit.edu/stats-reports/degrees-awarded https://registrar.mit.edu/stats-reports/degrees-awarded
  - ghaff 8y ago
    There are also a fair number of other majors that aren't in the School of Humanities but also aren't what most people would consider STEM like the fairly large School of Architecture, which includes things like Urban Studies and Planning. The overall number also includes a fairly large number of degrees, mostly masters, from the Sloan School of Management.
- galago 8y ago
  MIT has also been combining majors like Econ and CS--I'm not sure how these things can be counted. https://news.mit.edu/2017/mit-creates-new-major-computer-science-economics-data-science-0904 https://news.mit.edu/2017/mit-creates-new-major-computer-sci...
- michaelrmmiller 8y ago
  Both. Students are required to take humanities classes as well as declare a concentration. Many often choose to minor or major in humanities alongside a science or engineering degree. A handful end up graduating with only a humanities degree. My high school physics professor actually graduated MIT with a writing degree before returning for a PhD in physics. I myself double majored in Music Composition and Computer Science and have spent my career so far working at their intersection. The strength of their music department was a big part of the reason I applied to and attended MIT.
psykotic 8y ago
They could call it the MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
- rasmi 8y ago
  It is noted in this FAQ that CSAIL will become part of the new college. http://news.mit.edu/2018/faq-mit-stephen-schwarzman-college-of-computing-1015 http://news.mit.edu/2018/faq-mit-stephen-schwarzman-college-...
  - neolefty 8y ago
    Oh wow, that article explains it's a much bigger change than the headline says — all of Course 6, plus CSAIL and several others will move into the College. But it's also not a "College for Artificial Intelligence" — it's a "College of Computing". > A: The founding of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing is the most significant structural change since 1950, when MIT established the Sloan School of Management and the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. But this is much more than a restructuring: With this change, MIT seeks to position itself as a key player in the responsible and ethical evolution of technologies that will fundamentally transform society.
- neolefty 8y ago
  But what number will it get? 6.4? 23? (Also, 13 and 19 are unused.) Or will it go the way of STS? http://web.mit.edu/facts/academic.html http://web.mit.edu/facts/academic.html
  - clintonb 8y ago
    Still 6. The numbers aren't changing.
    - neolefty 8y ago
      Looks like it's the other way around — Course 6 will become part of the Schwartzman College of Computing. Does that make it an organizational peer with the Sloan School of Management?
corndoge 8y ago
College of Statistics and Nonlinear Function Approximation
- chodeboy 8y ago
  College for Flavor of the Year Buzzwords: McBlockchainz Edition
- Puer 8y ago
  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 in their application forms. People want to be become machine learning engineers because it's the sexy thing right now, but they don't want to learn the necessary statistics/linear algebra/optimization necessary for the roles. In my experience, these "AI" and "datascience" programs are largely just cash-grabs at most universities. I don't doubt that M.I.T.'s will be rigorous, but I'm largely skeptical of how useful these programs actually are.
  - sjg007 8y ago
    Pretty sure MIT offers stats and linear algebra.
    - Puer 8y ago
      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 ML engineer, but the math/stats is necessary pre-requisite and these pre-reqs are often poorly defined. At my college, the only pre-req to the graduate-level ML course was the freshman level intro to stats class and multivariable calculus. About 50% of the class dropped when they realized they didn't know how to construct Gaussian models or perform convex optimization.
chodeboy 8y ago
Not too sure what is the point. Colleges already have a hard time to fill their engineering places with domestic students. When I studied last year at Stanford 50%-60% of the students were from China and India and most of them went back afterwards. I feel like the US might be spreading its human resources too thin trying to dance on every party and solving the problem by throwing lots of money at it.
yaicedin 8y ago
School of Informatics, The University of Edinburgh. O.G in A.I., I'm biased as I graduated from there. Awesome awesome place to study A.I.
bitL 8y ago
Would be cool if they had an online/remote version of it and offered M.S. world-wide. Hey MIT, you up for some large-scale experiments in humanities?
- cycrutchfield 8y ago
  I’m guessing they probably don’t want it to become like the Georgia Tech rent-a-MS.
  - bitL 8y ago
    Can you be more specific? What's wrong with GT's OMS CS? I've heard it's tough and students are flooded with projects all the time, and some bleeding edge ones.
- clintonb 8y ago
  MIT and Harvard are co-founders of edX: https://www.edx.org/ https://www.edx.org/. While not fully online, MIT does allow students who earn a MicroMasters in Supply Chain Management online to apply that course work to the on campus masters program: https://www.edx.org/micromasters/mitx-supply-chain-management https://www.edx.org/micromasters/mitx-supply-chain-managemen....
  - bitL 8y ago
    None of those are accredited programs and employers don't care at all if you have them completed. They are treated on the level of MS certified beginner in something.
    - clintonb 8y ago
      edX has partnered with employers who have endorsed many of the programs. As for the MIT SCM program, the full masters is accredited.
js4ever 8y ago
Or when the hype become political
logfromblammo 8y ago
Aren't they jumping the gun, here? We'll need a general AI that can graduate high school first.~ I'm not sure why they need an entirely new college. Doesn't that just increase administrative overhead out of proportion to any perceivable benefit?
- kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
  Expanding scope is how middle managers forge new frontiers to advance their career.
liftbigweights 8y ago
Is there any reason not to link to the MIT news itself? https://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-reshapes-itself-stephen-schwarzman-college-of-computing-1015 https://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-reshapes-itself-stephen-schwar... Why link to the nytimes when you can link to the actual source?
- danso 8y ago
  Because a press release has a different aim than a news article.
  - fermienrico 8y ago
    Excellent point, I never think twice when people insist on the original source. The motive behind the article matters and secondary independent / unbiased source can provide a more balanced and truthful perspective.
    - liftbigweights 8y ago
      nytimes is as far from independent and unbiased as you can get.
randcraw 8y ago
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 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. Maybe this was the only way to ensure the gift of all $350 million. Or to build multiple new buildings...
- rorykoehler 8y ago
  > Each of this college's AI degrees will span distinct problem or solution spaces? Not likely. I don't see why not? We are a long way away from general AI.
- nopinsight 8y ago
  > 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. The current field of AI might not yet be as broad or deep as the fields you mentioned. The science and engineering of intelligence, however, holds potentials to be even deeper and more impactful than those fields. Intelligence underlies most human endeavors. Civilization itself would not be possible without it. It is the greatest distinction between us and other animals.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- ChrisRackauckas 8y ago
  AI isn't a method, it's a field of trying to solve problems through an almost pure computational mean. People tend to think of it as machine learning, but there's a whole range of mathematics and computer science related to solving these kinds of problems. In this sense, PDE-constrained optimal control of power grids, parameter estimation of pharmacometric models, robotics and automation, and bioinformatic advances like automated cell detection for enhanced next-generation sequencing techniques can easily fit under an AI umbrella. That makes it a huge interdisciplinary effort that can easily span a whole college, and something MIT is very well primed to succeed in.
locacorten 8y ago
I have been and continue to remain very skeptical about all this hoopla about AI. Five years ago, I thought the hoopla about AI is just a fashion and it's all going to quickly pass. Two years ago, I thought it's a bubble that will eventually burst. At this point, I'm wondering whether what's happening is pure re-branding where we'll stop using the term CS and instead use the term AI. If I think of AI as CS, I'm ok with it although I don't think graphics, comp. architecture, networking, and OS are AI. But if the rest of the world wants to call them AI, then let them.
- resters 8y ago
  I think you are assuming that weak AI is being touted as strong AI. What has happened is that methods have been discovered to do many very useful things using weak AI that have significant useful applications. However, since it's weak AI the building blocks aren't that different from the AI we've had for decades. What makes it novel and worth its own academic specialization is that understanding how to combine and utilize those building blocks is not trivial. I'd argue that it's currently a bit more of an art than a science, but surely it will eventually become a science.
- zjaffee 8y ago
  I think that AI is just a rebranding of all automation, especially in the case where it's data driven automation. So I don't think it is something that will just pass, but will become a term for the interdisciplinary field of solving interdisciplinary problems with computers and data.
- tim333 8y ago
  There are reasons to think some isn't hoopla, mostly that hardware is getting to brain level capabilities in processing power so you can do cool things you couldn't do before.
  - uryga 8y ago
    > hardware is getting to brain level capabilities in processing power is it? not picking a fight, but i was under the impression that we're nowhere near. could you expand on this?
maxwell 8y ago
The association with Schwarzman tarnishes my perception of MIT. http://noticingnewyork.blogspot.com/2014/10/plutocratic-class-warrior-stephen.html http://noticingnewyork.blogspot.com/2014/10/plutocratic-clas...
former_beaver 8y ago
I don't like this. A Skull and Bones Republican creating data-obsessed academics.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#Political_and_economic_views https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#Politica...
phoenixstrike 8y ago
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 appear "prominently" throughout the school. These conditions were scaled back after they were made public, previously kept private as a condition of the donation. (source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/answer-sheet/wp/2018/04/12/billionaire-offered-25-million-to-high-school-alma-mater-what-he-wanted-in-return-was-too-much-for-the-district/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/answer-sheet/wp/...) He made a scholarship program called the "Schwarzman Scholars" modeled after the Rhodes. Now, MIT. Look, don't get me wrong. I think donations to academic institutions are fantastic and he should be lauded for his generous giving. However I think it is worthwhile as a society for us to inspect these kind of actions a bit more critically. In my view, Schwarzman, who has no prior record of public interest, giving, or service prior to the last 10 years, is embarking on an aggressive campaign to formulate a positive legacy of his name with his money before he dies. It is artificial, transparent, and revisionist. 100 years from now, people won't remember Schwarzman for being a Trump supporter/friend/advisor and a wealthy Republican. As he has made certain with these donations, Schwarzman will be remembered as a benevolent philanthropist. He has done an extremely clever thing. Even I can't deny that he has done a wonderful thing by giving away so much money. So who can justifiably criticize the intent behind his actions? No one, really. 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.
- tatehhewwot 8y ago
  So deep, bro.
- eli_gottlieb 8y ago
  >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.
ausbah 8y ago
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".
- perennate 8y ago
  > 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-of-computing-1015 http://news.mit.edu/2018/faq-mit-stephen-schwarzman-college-...
starpilot 8y ago
No!
YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
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?
- Jun8 8y ago
  It seems like, to many people AI = ML = Deep Learning. Depending on cluelessness level the executive you talk to they may add CV to the equality, too. Back in the day we called ML "Pattern Recognition", I remember taking the course from Keinosuke Fukunaga at Purdue (good memories, I found out recently that his son is Gen Fukunaga: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gen_Fukunaga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gen_Fukunaga).
- ryanmarsh 8y ago
  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.
  - soared 8y ago
    > 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?
    - handsomechad 8y ago
      how would you reword it?
    - ryanmarsh 8y ago
      I heard it somewhere, I can’t remember
  - codekilla 8y ago
    The success of statistical machine learning is more limited than may be obvious. Try to think of problems these methods can't solve, then try to think of problems they can solve. Which stack is thicker? Then ask yourself, for the problems they can solve--can they really solve them as well as humans? Machine Translation, I'm looking at you, Image Recongition--I'm also looking at you. If they can solve them as well as humans, ask 'how much human intelligence is imprinted into this machine artifact?' Yes, AlphaGo, I'm looking right at you.
thrilleratplay 8y ago
Am I the only one who read the title and was not sure if M.I.T was creating an AI college for students or for AI algorithms to earn accreditation?
- jaxtellerSoA 8y ago
  No you are not. The title is in need of some attention.
Invictus0 8y ago
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 case, and I think what will ultimately happen at this College is that CS researchers will wall themselves off from the rest, who will just slow them down. If you want to bring AI to other fields, educate the people in those fields or hire an ML engineer.
- fsloth 8y ago
  Um, how do you know what problems are important without deep understanding of the other fields? Or what answers even make sense?
aaa45 8y ago
Why do we need another school for artificial intelligence in Cambridge when there's already Harvard?
cvaidya1986 8y ago
A step in the right direction! Congratulations!
B-Con 8y ago
I found the cross-discipline focus on the staff interesting: > The goal of the college, said L. Rafael Reif, the president of M.I.T., is to “educate the bilinguals of the future.” He defines bilinguals as people in fields like biology, chemistry, politics, history and linguistics who are also skilled in the techniques of modern computing that can be applied to them. > [...] > Traditionally, departments hold sway in hiring and tenure decisions at universities. So, for example, a researcher who applied A.I.-based text analysis tools in a field like history might be regarded as too much a computer scientist by the humanities department and not sufficiently technical by the computer science department. They're not just talking about streamlining "learn these statistical models" but also expanding humanities studies. The obvious wins from this that I see are: a) more applications of A.I. in areas that C.S. students are less interested in. b) more people who are knowledgeable about A.I. outside of C.S.
giardini 8y ago
$1 billion is slightly less than a third of MIT's annual operating expenditures. https://web.mit.edu/facts/financial.html https://web.mit.edu/facts/financial.html This boondoggle will have everyone from department heads and tenured professors to Boston building contractors climbing over each other to get to the feeding trough. In the end the billion will be soaked up like a sponge, everyone will be looking around saying "What happened?", and little will show as a result of the expenditure. Better to have selectively (and quietly) researched and invested in more specific efforts. But yeah, it's hard to find an easy way to spend a billion dollars.
therealmarv 8y ago
ever searched for a job in AI? They ALL (at least in Europe) want senior developers with 5-8 years experience in all sort of areas and no junior AI devs. Anybody is offering AI jobs (international) for people who got out of college and specialized in that? Looking for my brother, he is specialized in AI and looking for months for an AI job in Germany.
- lacker 8y ago
  It's funny how much of a different world Europe seems. In Silicon Valley there are all sorts of AI jobs. I wonder if there are more AI jobs in San Francisco than in all of Europe.
  - therealmarv 8y ago
    it's not funny if you search for a job. They want developer or admin experts with ai knowledge but nobody is interested to invest in a newcomer (which means university degree with knowledge) in ai.
Preshy 8y ago
wow https://momsall.com/elite-visa-card-apply-elite-credit-card-offer/ https://momsall.com/elite-visa-card-apply-elite-credit-card-...
aaaaaaaaaab 8y ago
Can I register a trademark for “University of Gradient Descent”? Something tells me it will be worth a ton of money in a few years.
tramGG 8y ago
How old is the cut off age for enrollment?
kbar13 8y ago
are we living in the fallout 4 timeline? http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/The_Institute http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/The_Institute
RegicidalManiac 8y ago
What I am little surprised about is why institutions like MIT still limiting themselves to the depleting pool of talent in USA alone. Given the gov plans to even outright ban Chinese students these universities will not survive.
jorgec 8y ago
1 billion for what?. MIT is just burning money and is achieving nothing. For example, from the MIT site: 2015—Designing the bandage of the future. So, where is it? 2016—Making the first direct detection of gravitational waves reaching the Earth. It's funny because we are still clueless if the gravitation waves are true or not. 2017—Adapting a CRISPR protein that targets RNA, rather than DNA.. And yet, another research that is "for the future". This happens when a failure of an investment has not consequenced.
djvasi 8y ago
Sounds like a great idea! signed by linkedin.com/in/djordje-vasiljevic

560 points by superfx 8y ago

> The college, Ms. Nobles said, offers the possibility of a renewal for humanities studies at M.I.T., where students flock to computer science and engineering. Do MIT students major in humanities subjects, or is the department's purpose to make engineering students well-rounded through taking electives in their department?

nhf 8y ago
Both. Undergrads have certain humanities requirements to fulfill - obviously some are natural fans, others treat it like an "eat your broccoli" requirement. Independent of requirements, MIT also has a fairly good reputation for philosophy, political science, linguistics, media studies, and a few other areas.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  Ya, also Noam Chomsky, who has a bit of infamy, is an MIT professor of linguistics.
  - adenadel 8y ago
    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.
    - eli_gottlieb 8y ago
      He's also notorious in linguistics for heckling anyone who proposes an approach other than universal generative grammar.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      I’m pretty neutral on Chomsky’s politics. I’m only pointing out that he is controversial as any good liberal arts professor should be. That being said, his LAD and UG theories have mostly not been useful, as we’ve seen to have done better with....ML (ironically enough).
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - btashton 8y ago
    Last year he took a position at Arizona.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      He is still an emeritus professor at MIT.
raoulj 8y ago
You can major in humanities at MIT, albeit it's somewhat uncommon.
- reuven 8y ago
  I'm an MIT alumnus ('92). A friend of mine specifically went to MIT to study political science, because of the high-quality faculty and the very small number of students majoring in it. He was one of four majors our year, and got to know the professors very well. He had a blast.
madcaptenor 8y ago
It is possible to major in humanities subjects at MIT but it's rather rare. See the statistics at https://registrar.mit.edu/stats-reports/majors-count https://registrar.mit.edu/stats-reports/majors-count .
kgilpin 8y ago
Last year, 90 degrees in the Humanities were awarded by MIT out of a total of 3,490. This presumably includes double majors. The largest subcategory was Economics, which is considered a humanity subject at MIT. https://registrar.mit.edu/stats-reports/degrees-awarded https://registrar.mit.edu/stats-reports/degrees-awarded
- ghaff 8y ago
  There are also a fair number of other majors that aren't in the School of Humanities but also aren't what most people would consider STEM like the fairly large School of Architecture, which includes things like Urban Studies and Planning. The overall number also includes a fairly large number of degrees, mostly masters, from the Sloan School of Management.
galago 8y ago
MIT has also been combining majors like Econ and CS--I'm not sure how these things can be counted. https://news.mit.edu/2017/mit-creates-new-major-computer-science-economics-data-science-0904 https://news.mit.edu/2017/mit-creates-new-major-computer-sci...
michaelrmmiller 8y ago
Both. Students are required to take humanities classes as well as declare a concentration. Many often choose to minor or major in humanities alongside a science or engineering degree. A handful end up graduating with only a humanities degree. My high school physics professor actually graduated MIT with a writing degree before returning for a PhD in physics. I myself double majored in Music Composition and Computer Science and have spent my career so far working at their intersection. The strength of their music department was a big part of the reason I applied to and attended MIT.

psykotic 8y ago

They could call it the MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

rasmi 8y ago
It is noted in this FAQ that CSAIL will become part of the new college. http://news.mit.edu/2018/faq-mit-stephen-schwarzman-college-of-computing-1015 http://news.mit.edu/2018/faq-mit-stephen-schwarzman-college-...
- neolefty 8y ago
  Oh wow, that article explains it's a much bigger change than the headline says — all of Course 6, plus CSAIL and several others will move into the College. But it's also not a "College for Artificial Intelligence" — it's a "College of Computing". > A: The founding of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing is the most significant structural change since 1950, when MIT established the Sloan School of Management and the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. But this is much more than a restructuring: With this change, MIT seeks to position itself as a key player in the responsible and ethical evolution of technologies that will fundamentally transform society.
neolefty 8y ago
But what number will it get? 6.4? 23? (Also, 13 and 19 are unused.) Or will it go the way of STS? http://web.mit.edu/facts/academic.html http://web.mit.edu/facts/academic.html
- clintonb 8y ago
  Still 6. The numbers aren't changing.
  - neolefty 8y ago
    Looks like it's the other way around — Course 6 will become part of the Schwartzman College of Computing. Does that make it an organizational peer with the Sloan School of Management?

corndoge 8y ago

College of Statistics and Nonlinear Function Approximation

chodeboy 8y ago
College for Flavor of the Year Buzzwords: McBlockchainz Edition
Puer 8y ago
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 in their application forms. People want to be become machine learning engineers because it's the sexy thing right now, but they don't want to learn the necessary statistics/linear algebra/optimization necessary for the roles. In my experience, these "AI" and "datascience" programs are largely just cash-grabs at most universities. I don't doubt that M.I.T.'s will be rigorous, but I'm largely skeptical of how useful these programs actually are.
- sjg007 8y ago
  Pretty sure MIT offers stats and linear algebra.
  - Puer 8y ago
    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 ML engineer, but the math/stats is necessary pre-requisite and these pre-reqs are often poorly defined. At my college, the only pre-req to the graduate-level ML course was the freshman level intro to stats class and multivariable calculus. About 50% of the class dropped when they realized they didn't know how to construct Gaussian models or perform convex optimization.

chodeboy 8y ago

Not too sure what is the point. Colleges already have a hard time to fill their engineering places with domestic students. When I studied last year at Stanford 50%-60% of the students were from China and India and most of them went back afterwards. I feel like the US might be spreading its human resources too thin trying to dance on every party and solving the problem by throwing lots of money at it.

yaicedin 8y ago

School of Informatics, The University of Edinburgh. O.G in A.I., I'm biased as I graduated from there. Awesome awesome place to study A.I.

bitL 8y ago

Would be cool if they had an online/remote version of it and offered M.S. world-wide. Hey MIT, you up for some large-scale experiments in humanities?

cycrutchfield 8y ago
I’m guessing they probably don’t want it to become like the Georgia Tech rent-a-MS.
- bitL 8y ago
  Can you be more specific? What's wrong with GT's OMS CS? I've heard it's tough and students are flooded with projects all the time, and some bleeding edge ones.
clintonb 8y ago
MIT and Harvard are co-founders of edX: https://www.edx.org/ https://www.edx.org/. While not fully online, MIT does allow students who earn a MicroMasters in Supply Chain Management online to apply that course work to the on campus masters program: https://www.edx.org/micromasters/mitx-supply-chain-management https://www.edx.org/micromasters/mitx-supply-chain-managemen....
- bitL 8y ago
  None of those are accredited programs and employers don't care at all if you have them completed. They are treated on the level of MS certified beginner in something.
  - clintonb 8y ago
    edX has partnered with employers who have endorsed many of the programs. As for the MIT SCM program, the full masters is accredited.

js4ever 8y ago

Or when the hype become political

logfromblammo 8y ago

Aren't they jumping the gun, here? We'll need a general AI that can graduate high school first.~ I'm not sure why they need an entirely new college. Doesn't that just increase administrative overhead out of proportion to any perceivable benefit?

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
Expanding scope is how middle managers forge new frontiers to advance their career.

liftbigweights 8y ago

Is there any reason not to link to the MIT news itself? https://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-reshapes-itself-stephen-schwarzman-college-of-computing-1015 https://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-reshapes-itself-stephen-schwar... Why link to the nytimes when you can link to the actual source?

danso 8y ago
Because a press release has a different aim than a news article.
- fermienrico 8y ago
  Excellent point, I never think twice when people insist on the original source. The motive behind the article matters and secondary independent / unbiased source can provide a more balanced and truthful perspective.
  - liftbigweights 8y ago
    nytimes is as far from independent and unbiased as you can get.

randcraw 8y ago

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 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. Maybe this was the only way to ensure the gift of all $350 million. Or to build multiple new buildings...

rorykoehler 8y ago
> Each of this college's AI degrees will span distinct problem or solution spaces? Not likely. I don't see why not? We are a long way away from general AI.
nopinsight 8y ago
> 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. The current field of AI might not yet be as broad or deep as the fields you mentioned. The science and engineering of intelligence, however, holds potentials to be even deeper and more impactful than those fields. Intelligence underlies most human endeavors. Civilization itself would not be possible without it. It is the greatest distinction between us and other animals.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
ChrisRackauckas 8y ago
AI isn't a method, it's a field of trying to solve problems through an almost pure computational mean. People tend to think of it as machine learning, but there's a whole range of mathematics and computer science related to solving these kinds of problems. In this sense, PDE-constrained optimal control of power grids, parameter estimation of pharmacometric models, robotics and automation, and bioinformatic advances like automated cell detection for enhanced next-generation sequencing techniques can easily fit under an AI umbrella. That makes it a huge interdisciplinary effort that can easily span a whole college, and something MIT is very well primed to succeed in.

locacorten 8y ago

I have been and continue to remain very skeptical about all this hoopla about AI. Five years ago, I thought the hoopla about AI is just a fashion and it's all going to quickly pass. Two years ago, I thought it's a bubble that will eventually burst. At this point, I'm wondering whether what's happening is pure re-branding where we'll stop using the term CS and instead use the term AI. If I think of AI as CS, I'm ok with it although I don't think graphics, comp. architecture, networking, and OS are AI. But if the rest of the world wants to call them AI, then let them.

resters 8y ago
I think you are assuming that weak AI is being touted as strong AI. What has happened is that methods have been discovered to do many very useful things using weak AI that have significant useful applications. However, since it's weak AI the building blocks aren't that different from the AI we've had for decades. What makes it novel and worth its own academic specialization is that understanding how to combine and utilize those building blocks is not trivial. I'd argue that it's currently a bit more of an art than a science, but surely it will eventually become a science.
zjaffee 8y ago
I think that AI is just a rebranding of all automation, especially in the case where it's data driven automation. So I don't think it is something that will just pass, but will become a term for the interdisciplinary field of solving interdisciplinary problems with computers and data.
tim333 8y ago
There are reasons to think some isn't hoopla, mostly that hardware is getting to brain level capabilities in processing power so you can do cool things you couldn't do before.
- uryga 8y ago
  > hardware is getting to brain level capabilities in processing power is it? not picking a fight, but i was under the impression that we're nowhere near. could you expand on this?

maxwell 8y ago

The association with Schwarzman tarnishes my perception of MIT. http://noticingnewyork.blogspot.com/2014/10/plutocratic-class-warrior-stephen.html http://noticingnewyork.blogspot.com/2014/10/plutocratic-clas...

former_beaver 8y ago

I don't like this. A Skull and Bones Republican creating data-obsessed academics.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#Political_and_economic_views https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman#Politica...

phoenixstrike 8y ago

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 appear "prominently" throughout the school. These conditions were scaled back after they were made public, previously kept private as a condition of the donation. (source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/answer-sheet/wp/2018/04/12/billionaire-offered-25-million-to-high-school-alma-mater-what-he-wanted-in-return-was-too-much-for-the-district/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/answer-sheet/wp/...) He made a scholarship program called the "Schwarzman Scholars" modeled after the Rhodes. Now, MIT. Look, don't get me wrong. I think donations to academic institutions are fantastic and he should be lauded for his generous giving. However I think it is worthwhile as a society for us to inspect these kind of actions a bit more critically. In my view, Schwarzman, who has no prior record of public interest, giving, or service prior to the last 10 years, is embarking on an aggressive campaign to formulate a positive legacy of his name with his money before he dies. It is artificial, transparent, and revisionist. 100 years from now, people won't remember Schwarzman for being a Trump supporter/friend/advisor and a wealthy Republican. As he has made certain with these donations, Schwarzman will be remembered as a benevolent philanthropist. He has done an extremely clever thing. Even I can't deny that he has done a wonderful thing by giving away so much money. So who can justifiably criticize the intent behind his actions? No one, really. 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.

tatehhewwot 8y ago
So deep, bro.
eli_gottlieb 8y ago
>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.

ausbah 8y ago

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".

perennate 8y ago
> 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-of-computing-1015 http://news.mit.edu/2018/faq-mit-stephen-schwarzman-college-...

starpilot 8y ago

No!

YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago

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?

Jun8 8y ago
It seems like, to many people AI = ML = Deep Learning. Depending on cluelessness level the executive you talk to they may add CV to the equality, too. Back in the day we called ML "Pattern Recognition", I remember taking the course from Keinosuke Fukunaga at Purdue (good memories, I found out recently that his son is Gen Fukunaga: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gen_Fukunaga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gen_Fukunaga).
ryanmarsh 8y ago
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.
- soared 8y ago
  > 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?
  - handsomechad 8y ago
    how would you reword it?
  - ryanmarsh 8y ago
    I heard it somewhere, I can’t remember
- codekilla 8y ago
  The success of statistical machine learning is more limited than may be obvious. Try to think of problems these methods can't solve, then try to think of problems they can solve. Which stack is thicker? Then ask yourself, for the problems they can solve--can they really solve them as well as humans? Machine Translation, I'm looking at you, Image Recongition--I'm also looking at you. If they can solve them as well as humans, ask 'how much human intelligence is imprinted into this machine artifact?' Yes, AlphaGo, I'm looking right at you.

thrilleratplay 8y ago

Am I the only one who read the title and was not sure if M.I.T was creating an AI college for students or for AI algorithms to earn accreditation?

jaxtellerSoA 8y ago
No you are not. The title is in need of some attention.

Invictus0 8y ago

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 case, and I think what will ultimately happen at this College is that CS researchers will wall themselves off from the rest, who will just slow them down. If you want to bring AI to other fields, educate the people in those fields or hire an ML engineer.

fsloth 8y ago
Um, how do you know what problems are important without deep understanding of the other fields? Or what answers even make sense?

aaa45 8y ago

Why do we need another school for artificial intelligence in Cambridge when there's already Harvard?

cvaidya1986 8y ago

A step in the right direction! Congratulations!

B-Con 8y ago

I found the cross-discipline focus on the staff interesting: > The goal of the college, said L. Rafael Reif, the president of M.I.T., is to “educate the bilinguals of the future.” He defines bilinguals as people in fields like biology, chemistry, politics, history and linguistics who are also skilled in the techniques of modern computing that can be applied to them. > [...] > Traditionally, departments hold sway in hiring and tenure decisions at universities. So, for example, a researcher who applied A.I.-based text analysis tools in a field like history might be regarded as too much a computer scientist by the humanities department and not sufficiently technical by the computer science department. They're not just talking about streamlining "learn these statistical models" but also expanding humanities studies. The obvious wins from this that I see are: a) more applications of A.I. in areas that C.S. students are less interested in. b) more people who are knowledgeable about A.I. outside of C.S.

giardini 8y ago

$1 billion is slightly less than a third of MIT's annual operating expenditures. https://web.mit.edu/facts/financial.html https://web.mit.edu/facts/financial.html This boondoggle will have everyone from department heads and tenured professors to Boston building contractors climbing over each other to get to the feeding trough. In the end the billion will be soaked up like a sponge, everyone will be looking around saying "What happened?", and little will show as a result of the expenditure. Better to have selectively (and quietly) researched and invested in more specific efforts. But yeah, it's hard to find an easy way to spend a billion dollars.

therealmarv 8y ago

ever searched for a job in AI? They ALL (at least in Europe) want senior developers with 5-8 years experience in all sort of areas and no junior AI devs. Anybody is offering AI jobs (international) for people who got out of college and specialized in that? Looking for my brother, he is specialized in AI and looking for months for an AI job in Germany.

lacker 8y ago
It's funny how much of a different world Europe seems. In Silicon Valley there are all sorts of AI jobs. I wonder if there are more AI jobs in San Francisco than in all of Europe.
- therealmarv 8y ago
  it's not funny if you search for a job. They want developer or admin experts with ai knowledge but nobody is interested to invest in a newcomer (which means university degree with knowledge) in ai.

Preshy 8y ago

wow https://momsall.com/elite-visa-card-apply-elite-credit-card-offer/ https://momsall.com/elite-visa-card-apply-elite-credit-card-...

aaaaaaaaaab 8y ago

Can I register a trademark for “University of Gradient Descent”? Something tells me it will be worth a ton of money in a few years.

tramGG 8y ago

How old is the cut off age for enrollment?

kbar13 8y ago

are we living in the fallout 4 timeline? http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/The_Institute http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/The_Institute

RegicidalManiac 8y ago

What I am little surprised about is why institutions like MIT still limiting themselves to the depleting pool of talent in USA alone. Given the gov plans to even outright ban Chinese students these universities will not survive.

jorgec 8y ago

1 billion for what?. MIT is just burning money and is achieving nothing. For example, from the MIT site: 2015—Designing the bandage of the future. So, where is it? 2016—Making the first direct detection of gravitational waves reaching the Earth. It's funny because we are still clueless if the gravitation waves are true or not. 2017—Adapting a CRISPR protein that targets RNA, rather than DNA.. And yet, another research that is "for the future". This happens when a failure of an investment has not consequenced.

djvasi 8y ago

Sounds like a great idea! signed by linkedin.com/in/djordje-vasiljevic