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72-year-old Congressman pursues a Master's in AI
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- metaphor 4y agohttps://archive.vn/elsz5 https://archive.vn/elsz5
- ngoilapites 4y agoIs there a good book about techniques for learning in maturity?
- themodelplumber 4y agoThere are thousands of different techniques from thousands of different developmental philosophies. For example from a Jungian-oriented perspective on "the afternoon of life," you could say that the tension between opposites is reduced, so you can finally start to look at combining opposites that you had previously thought were required to work separately. Putting the weapons down and putting ideals back in the front seat. One might explore becoming a Windows + Linux person for example. Or becoming more aware of intertwining logical and emotional perspectives on a given topic...maybe one "just likes" using Photoshop even though it is the only thing keeping them on their old Mac. Still, logically it doesn't make sense in some ways, so they pick up a Chromebook for the day-to-day web stuff. This can be related back to everything in one's life, from learning about relationships to programming language dynamics to new fitness skills. The old opposites want to make war. But how can they work together to create a new, improved, third point of progress? And that's just one of thousands of different techniques relevant to aging...for this reason it can help to look at broader surveys on aging, be they books, Youtube videos, blogs, etc., and kind of mentally check off techniques that can apply to learning as you come across them. The best techniques for a given individual are generally found spread across many sources, and sometimes those sources are surprisingly not at all "about" learning. IMO it's a great idea to keep a log of one's aging process, as well.
- ngoilapites 4y agoI guess life processes are quite different at maturity, e.g. routines, roles and responsibilities they all condition time and available attention, which condition the possibility space for learning.
- themodelplumber 4y agoAnd that's just conscious learning. The automated/subconscious patterning stuff has been very interesting to me. We have known for a long time that various stuff will be learned by you whether you prefer it or not, depending on your past and barely mitigated by even a generally conscious developmental bent. If you can move it into the conscious zone you can control future outcomes to some extent and possibly control the upside and downside factors through a process of reconciliation. And as a general developing body / organism, we are all experiencing this together as well, with even less conscious control. Species as individual with separate personality characteristics.
- ngoilapites 4y agoSpeaking of the sub-conscious of learning, before studying a topic, I "scroll" through it e.g. with fast page flipping.
- weakfortress 4y agoHow does "learning in maturity" change from regular learning? Why do you need a book? Just go find something and learn it...the system couldn't be simpler.
- ngoilapites 4y agoWhen you reach 40s you will see...
- 082349872349872 4y agoI'm well past 40s and haven't seen? (There are some days when I don't learn anything, but that only happens if I'm really, really careful.)
- ngoilapites 4y agoI mean, is not only our brain and its gradual natural change, it is also the unsurmountable unavoidable attention-consuming routines.
- 082349872349872 4y agoThose I avoid. Kids are grown and I have enough financial options to be picky with my contracts, so YMMV. (and, come to think of it, I've finally convinced my spouse of the value of letting me have 4-hour blocks of focus time)
- ngoilapites 4y agoThese are valuable suggestions indeed. As per my spouse, she sees the value of letting me away to fully switch off (hike, surf, other sportish activity) one week or 10 days every 6-8 months. I am much fresher after these breaks.
- weakfortress 4y agoMaybe I'm fortunate and developed some preternatural ability to learn by taking college classes almost my entire life. But I've never had a problem asking for book recommendations (from professors, the internet, etc) and then reading the book and learning. For example, I've recently worked through a good chunk of Alegbra: Chapter 0. I've read a few rust books cover to cover to understand the language, etc. Time isn't as available as it used to be when I was a kid. My brain still works the same though. Learning is learning.
- gamesbrainiac 4y agoThis is so refreshing to read, but so very rare. I thought the "I don't know, but I'll find out" crowd died out in politics.
- themodelplumber 4y agoThese aspects will start to come back into vogue as broader societal progress stabilizes at its new levels, and institutional forces internalize conflict. There will be a new norm of politician who is less of a laughingstock and more of a quality leader who looks into things in a qualitative way. It'll still be a politician who will need to know the game though. In a post-Trump world you can generally expect the return of subjective quality in government. This will be good in a lot of ways, but it will also generally lead to some other unwanted factors coming back into style.
- jrumbut 4y agoCare to expand on the unwanted factors? This is an interesting post and I want to hear more.
- themodelplumber 4y agoThe currently new core of cultural values will solidify and there will be some new level of general practice to act on those values. IOW values will fall in line in a general way as they usually do, once the battle lines fade. Diehards will be way more awkward and will fade as attention moves away from them. These were never quality positions in the first place though. You'll probably see new silent generation(s) come about, and conspiracies in government will return to their archetypally stable form, as tacit agreements to preserve a given form of stability. (The recent wacky-conspiracy-theory trend provided wonderful cover for the boring way conspiracies actually form and operate, being mostly without much conscious control and generally in favor of more-of-desired-brand-of-stability rather than chaos) It will take unity to accomplish what's ahead, just as it took diversity to accomplish the most recent changes in culture and fight the accompanying battles. It will take persistent unity to take on government corruption. Waste there will become a bigger issue than we know now. And not along old party lines. The old ways of making noise will no longer work as well, but the new ways will work in favor of smart people and loud people getting together. This will all develop in waves, it's not a one-and-done but rather a trending vein or wave process. The biggest challenges will be centered around questions of who we want to be as humans, and whether we really believe in the desired-unknown as a body, or if we still think we are suckers for believing in developmental progress. If the latter we will get more of the undesired-unknown (recent chaos) in disguise as the desired-known (icons of the past). Anecdotally one will still be able to see whatever one needs to see in government to reflect preferred perspectives, mask one's own blindspots, etc. But more objectively speaking there should be clear, solid trends like these that can probably be charted or tracked in a reliable way. (This is subjective-probabilistic speculation based on my professional background with individual and group archetypes & personality development. There's always a chance I'm 150% wrong)
- TotoHorner 4y agoCurriculum - https://cs.gmu.edu/current-students/ms-students/ms-in-computer-science/machine-learning-concentration/ https://cs.gmu.edu/current-students/ms-students/ms-in-comput...
- wolverine876 4y agoA major problem in our society is that '72-year-old' is in the headline. If you are not growing, you are declining or dead. Not only does the world change under your feet, you need that stimulation just to stay healthy. We ruin the talent, economic value, and freedom and opportunity of a very large portion of the population by dimissing the growth of anyone in late middle-age or later. 72 years old shouldn't be remarkable, but the norm.
- option 4y agonope. we need much younger politicians. And we need 70+ old guys learn new things just like this politician does.
- kenjackson 4y agoCurious. Why do we need much younger politicians?
- option 4y agobecause people deteriorate mentally and physically with age.
- puzzledobserver 4y agoBut isn't this exactly the mindset that the original comment in this thread was criticizing? It might be fair to say, as a sibling comment does, that one needs younger politicians so they can better represent one's constituents. But to dismiss them just because they're old amounts to shutting off an economically productive segment of the population. More importantly, by discriminating against individuals because of their class membership rather than because of their abilities amounts to prejudice, no?
- rapind 4y agoSure, but you still need to consider the individual and not paint an entire demographic as “less than”. To do otherwise is prejudice. Ageism in this case. It’s also factual that wealth greatly impacts education, but we wouldn’t want to suggest poor people are unfit for office due to this disadvantage right? My parents are into their 70s and I have yet to detect even the slightest mental degradation.
- jtchang 4y agoMany of us are well aware of how difficult some of the prerequisite CS classes can be so he definitely has my respect.
- dbish 4y agoHopefully he gets through them, looks like he’s still in the undergrad portion of this plan “must complete undergraduate prerequisite courses before starting the graduate work which he expects to start by 2024.”
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- pramsey 4y agoArticle says he's working on multi-variate calculus now, which implies he was able to dredge up enough of his 50-year-old knowledge of basic calculus to even understand what the teacher is saying. Impressive.
- dbish 4y agoMaster’s in CS with a concentration in AI is a better description. Cool to see a representative actually learning about the tech instead of just having legal education which is sadly far too common (same focus as my MS in CS though that was 10+ years ago and things have changed just a little on the AI side)
- M3L0NM4N 4y agoAs someone considering my MS in CS with a focus in AI, I gotta ask you why you did it, and was it worth it for your career? Would greatly appreciate the insight, thanks.
- dbish 4y agoHappy to share. My main reason was that I really wanted to get more into machine learning and didn’t feel like it was going to be as fast to go deep on my own. It’s much easier now, both in terms of educational materials available and the amount of people publicly talking about the field, but there’s something to the structure that helped me set aside the time to learn too. I made the choice to not do it full time at a higher ranked school and instead do part time classes because I didn’t think it was worth paying for myself, and my employer would pay for it as long as I kept working for them. Not sure that trade off was worth it in the end, and working while going to school was exhausting, but it was fun to both keep a career and get to be a grad student for a bit. It helped with practicing to work hard and manage my schedule well. I did also spend most of my career after this in ML so it helped with positioning and preparation to start taking ML-related roles, but there are a lot more companies now in the space where you can likely learn quickly by coming in as a junior engineer and learning on the job. Feel free to email me or send me a DM on Twitter if you have more specific questions I can help with. Info is in my profile.
- M3L0NM4N 4y agoAwesome, thanks for the detailed response. No questions right now but might shoot you a Twitter DM in the future, will let you know. Thanks again.
- joshlemer 4y agoThis may be good for his personal development or growth and understanding but wouldn't his constituents rather he dedicate his time to representing them and their interests in the house of representatives?
- 0xdde 4y agoMaybe they don't mind him spending a few hours on it each day after he's done with work and would rather he have this more knowledgeable take on relevant legislation.
- tracer17 4y agoI'm his constituent and I don't mind at all. I think having some free time is crucial to performing well at all jobs and if he chooses to spend that time on coursework that could give him greater insight into Congressional policy then more power to him.
- rg111 4y agoNo. Being a Congressman not only means attending to his local issues and policies. It also means helping create federal and state policies, regulations, being member of national committees, etc. And there are going to be more such bodies in the near future centered around technology and AI. It's laudable that he is keeping himself updated and informed. Remember the judge who learned Java? It's like that.
- cm2187 4y agoRepresentatives have to do both, represent the interest of their voters, but also legislate on all sort of national topics, from financial regulations to defence matters. So it is very reasonable for a member of congress to become a specialist on a topic that may be of critical importance to the country one day. I wish more would have done that in the 90s when the internet and personal computers started being a big thing.
- xerxesaa 4y agoIf this same person was deciding to spend 3-4 hours a day watching Netflix or playing basketball, this would not even be a question. He has a life outside of Congress and I see nothing wrong with using it to further his education.
- lwansbrough 4y agoIt surely needn’t be a requirement, but demonstrating this level of commitment to executing your duties to the best of your ability is worthy of a lot of respect. Props to Rep. Beyer. Even if it means his vote just cancels out some other congresspersons vote that has been paid for.
- janalsncm 4y agoGood for him. I have so much respect for leaders that actually understand things at a deep technical level. I will also keep an eye out for his AI caucus. The US desperately needs regulation regarding automated systems.
- GabeIsko 4y agoWait, he is 72, but he has never bothered with multivariable calculus?
- AussieWog93 4y agoYou've just described about 98% of people at that age.
- todd3834 4y agoWhen I was the common age to go to college I didn’t want anything to do with school. It worked out and I’ve worked as an engineer at several FAANG and the like. However, what I wouldn’t give to have the freedom and lack of responsibilities to be able to go to college now. Not for the parties, I did plenty of that and it’s completely out of my system. I’m jealous of being able to dedicate the majority of the time studying stuff that interests me. It’s such a small window where I get to do it these days.
- Qwerty-Qwerty 4y ago[flagged]
- bgkim 4y agoLearning something new and highly technical like machine learning seems a good way of spending time in one's 70s. Even he is not retired but a congressman. It encourages me think that I am not too old to learn machine learning.
- pkaye 4y agoWhen I attended a California UC and CSU university, I met some seniors who were getting a engineering degree just for fun. At that time I think California seniors could attend courses with no tuition. This was all 20-30 year ago. I think that is still true for the CSU system but not sure about UC system. I had some interesting conversation with some individuals. One used to work for engineers in the Navy and wanted to understand more of what they did. Another was involved in some early work on lithium battery technologies and wanted to understand software engineering.
- neilv 4y ago> The proctor administering an exam in his pre-calc class this spring leaned in and whispered, “What are you doing here?” as Beyer handed in his test. I could read that multiple ways, but it doesn't sound good, not when we should already be sensitized not to discourage people. Imagine saying that to a more familiar kind of less-represented student. The next time someone asks why a university needs initiatives in diversity and inclusion, this is one argument for why: it's an unsolved problem.
- Brian_K_White 4y agoMaybe it was just a question, and maybe they were fine with the simple answer. What if the answer was "I'm gathering data so that I can go back and get congress to close all schools" ? Not likely to ever be his particular angle, but in fact he is gathering understanding at least in part to inform his policy role, and his being a congressman does make his presense validly noteworthy in a way that his merely being 74 years old or any other property does not. Maybe it was asked in a challenging disparaging unwelcoming way, but I see nothing in here to lead to that assumption.
- neilv 4y agoAs I said, I could read it multiple ways. But what's the most likely immediate perception of the person who is putting themselves out there, somewhere they're obviously underrepresented? I think probably they'll feel discouraged and excluded. That's the problem.
- snowwrestler 4y agoIt’s obviously because the proctor recognized Rep. Don Beyer, who is well-known in the area, and wondered why a sitting U.S. Congressman was taking an undergraduate college course.
- peter_retief 4y agoI am 61 and did Andy Ngo's specialization Machine Learning course through Courser and Stanford (Which I loved). If you are lucky enough to have your health as you get older it is a privilege and an honour to be able to study and continue your education.
- morelisp 4y agoI think you mean Andrew Ng's...
- peter_retief 4y agoOops yes I did, sorry Andrew.
- yodsanklai 4y agoI wish I'll be capable of that when I'm retired. I wonder if people that age manage to get passing grades in competitive master programs, when evaluated with the same criterias as any other students.