Finland's Ambitious Plan To Teach Anyone the Basics of AI (technologyreview.com) 87
In the era of AI superpowers, Finland is no match for the US and China. So the Scandinavian country is taking a different tack. From a report: It has embarked on an ambitious challenge to teach the basics of AI to 1% of its population, or 55,000 people. Once it reaches that goal, it plans to go further, increasing the share of the population with AI know-how. The scheme is all part of a greater effort to establish Finland as a leader in applying and using the technology.
Citizens take an online course that is specifically designed for non-technology experts with no programming experience. The government is now rolling it out nationally. As of mid-December, more than 10,500 people, including at least 4,000 outside of Finland's borders, had graduated from the course. More than 250 companies have also pledged to train part or all of their workforce.
Citizens take an online course that is specifically designed for non-technology experts with no programming experience. The government is now rolling it out nationally. As of mid-December, more than 10,500 people, including at least 4,000 outside of Finland's borders, had graduated from the course. More than 250 companies have also pledged to train part or all of their workforce.
totally not a bad idea (Score:1)
basic could just mean some common sense, like I know that I have to take my car to the shop if it strange noise. AI, big data, deep learning, is not fundamentally difficult concept, just a lot of math. I don't need the math to drive.
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It's Finland. Just trying to get across the concept of something that willfully speaks more than once a month will be a huge challenge.
damn (Score:1)
Classic quote from website (Score:2)
Risto Siilasmaa, Chairman of board, Nokia
Classic. Because THAT guy is good at predicting the future.
No time frame = big wiggle (Score:1)
Most would agree with that prediction. But the key is when, which nobody can reliably predict. It may take 10 years or another 500 years before bots have what we call "common sense" (assuming humans don't bleep themselves back to the stone age).
He didn't give a time-frame. That means he may be a forgotten pile of bones before his prediction comes true.
Nobody knows how to give bots gene
Well... (Score:2)
"AI is going to have as big an impact on our society as electricity"
You say that as if you doubt it to be true, but you sound a lot like this guy scoffing at David Bowie [gizmodo.com] about the impact of the internet... back in 1999...
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I was doing multi-homed hosting centers in 1999. It didn't exactly need a prophet to see that the Internet was going to be something big. Heck, 99 was smack middle in the dot-com era.
If anything, the interviewer was a complete dofus.
Don't want to smack down Bowie, he's brilliant. But you didn't need a genius in 99 to tell you that the Internet was going to be a thing.
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Have some of his works right here on the bookshelf. It's a very interesting mix of foresight and blunder. Some of it I find insightful still today, which is astonishing given the age, and some of it makes no sense without LSD, I guess.
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Walls (Score:1)
The only ones of the three who built a country-wide wall was Eastern Germany, aka the GDR.
I guess Finland and the Soviet union had fortified SOME places, but that is not the same as a wall that spans an entire border.
Re: Walls (Score:2)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_German_border
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And along the rest of the borders they had stuff like barbed wire fences, some mine fields and guard towers with guards that had orders to shoot at refugees. Stuff that would give Trump a massive orgasm if he could find the money for it.
So, not always a wall as in "pile of bricks", but still some sort of serious obstacle
Basics of AI 101 (Score:2)
Teach programming basics instead (Score:1)
This seems pretty useless. It would be better to teach everyone (or at least a lot of the population) the basics of programming. "AI" has gone through several winters in the past, there's no reason to think that the cycle will ebb again. Sure, it won't be as low of an ebb as prior cycles, but it's going to be tough for some folks who have experience working in the field to find work at some point, let alone all of the people just jumping on the bandwagon.
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It would be better to teach everyone (or at least a lot of the population) the basics of programming.
They already do. Basic programming is already part of the standard curriculum for Finland's public schools.
Can we WAIT until the tech has stabilized?! (Score:2)
(*Which is not the same as the No True Scotsman Fallacy here)
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aren't you perpetuating this problem by using "AI"
Lots of Math, Nothing New (Score:2)
I took an AI course as a University Graduate and discovered that it really is all math and that the Theory is by no means new. We just have far more powerful machines today that can do a lot more calculations for cheap. Most AI algorithms are simple pattern matching neural nets or genetic algorithms. We still don't have a good handle on what it means to be conscious or even what being self-aware really means despite knowing that ourselves. A lot of folks tend to believe in some magical take over the wor
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Indeed. Also, in CS and in Physics, the whole is not more than the sum of its parts. Consciousness and real intelligence will not magically emerge just because you threw enough parts together. That is not how things work.
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That is belief, not Science. Science in this case says the whole is exactly the sum of its parts. If anything "magically" appears, then it was already present in the parts. That is exceptionally unlikely with the precision we have in measuring the properties of the parts today.
Re:Lots of Math, Nothing New (Score:4, Insightful)
I had a keen interest in AI around 15 or so years ago. Experimented with some early backpropagating neural networks, checked on the progress of the CyC project, read a couple of the influential books on the field. Then I saw it wasn't going anywhere and put my interests in other places.
Some years ago, machine-learning and "deep learning" were suddenly big, big things. Didn't have the time to dive into it. When a little later I did because everyone was still talking about it, I thought they had found a new breakthrough approach. Picture me surprised when I discovered it's basically 20 year old ideas, just on fast computers.
And they still sometimes recognize the weather instead of the tanks (if you get that joke, you are really old).
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I think a lot of the AI fanatics are using tech as a religion-surrogate. Of course, it has to be all powerful then.
whatever (Score:1)
The way Finnish government has been spending over the years with tech sector funding, I suppose this is just as good as the rest of it. The public sector decision makers seem to have little real understanding or competence. I suppose with the ecosystem and the people already in it, anyone not fitting that description wants to go elsewhere.
I can already imagine soon having to work with people who will tell me they did "elements of AI" or something similar. Then proceed to think they are experts and happily t
It will at least be hard to be more stupid (Score:2)
You would have to go into things like "teach everybody how to write an opera" or "teach everybody how to do brain-surgery".
Ambitious, yes, utterly stupid, you bet.
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Imagine a Beowulf cluster of Darwin Awards.
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While I would say this is funny, I have a nagging suspicion that the human race is working hard towards that goal...
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Well it was funny until you posted that gloomy assessment. Sadly what you said is probably true.
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The important difference is that they'll teach "anybody".
If you want to learn it, they'll teach it to you.
That's how education should work, really. Fuck the tuition.
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Ah, yes. There is no tuition or only token tuition in most public universities in Europe.
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Tell that to Humon of SATW.
https://satwcomic.com/the-rake [satwcomic.com]
Nice (Score:2)
Good for the Finns.
Lots of countries have trouble just to teach their pupils 'I'.
Finland is not Scandinavian (Score:3)
It's a Nordic country. There's a difference.
Wha? (Score:2)
non-technology experts with no programming experience
OK, beyond the one or two hidden wunderkinds you'll find, how on God's green earth are you going to teach these people "the basics of AI"?
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Because you don't need to be either of these two to understand the basics of "AI"
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Because you don't need to be either of these two to understand the basics of "AI"
I guess that depends on how basic "the basics" are.
propagation of machine learning (Score:2)
I agree with your distillation of the current applications of machine learning. Your last sentence, I think, captures the value that can be brought to Finland by running 55k people through a basic machine learning tutorial. A diverse portion of the population will be exposed to the potential of machine learning and may become 'consultants' identifying ML application opportunities throughout Finland'
Anyone = 1% (Score:4, Informative)
The way the headline is phrased, it seems like it will become something that will be taught in every classroom.
In reality it is just an online course that a small part of the population are expected to follow. Coincidentally, it more or less matches the number of people who can code. That's a good initiative, but not especially "ambitious", and that's probably for the best.
BTW, it looks like anyone can take the course: https://www.elementsofai.com/ [elementsofai.com]
inspiring (Score:2)
Such specificity in education is a great benefit to any society.
I'd love to see what they're teaching? (Score:3)
Are they also teaching "how to ride unicorns" or maybe "how to speak draconic languages"?...since AI (as in actual, independent, artificial intelligence) DOESN'T ACTUALLY EXIST.
According to TFA, they're talking about the "AI" that offers options based on your Facebook perceives, or that interpret photographs online...Google calling it AI doesn't make it so. Those are reinforced-dynamic learning heuristics fronting a massive database search engine.
Don't get me wrong, those are fascinating and interesting things that I myself would love to understand better (not sure what actual value there is to pushing for broad understanding of the techniques, though), but were falling gullibly for marketing-speak by allowing then to be called "artificial intelligence". Actual AI - the idea of a synthetic analogue to a creative, independent human brain (or even, let's say, a true simulation of a simplistic animal or insect brain) - is DECADES away at the most optimistic estimates.
I'm not really sure I understand what's going on: the conventional wisdom seems to have abandoned reality in favor of this sort of invented utopia where we simply insist things exist and then start acting as if they do? Slashdot in particular is rife with articles about how AI will take your job (it won't, anytime soon), how we'll all be using self driving cars (there are MASSIVE technical hurdles remaining, to say nothing of legal norms yet undetermined), and how we can basically run the world on solar/wind power (we're decades from that, at least, if it's even possible). Some people are troubled by fake news...I'm now troubled by the apparent willingness of great swathes of the population living almost entirely in a fictional now.
Re:I'dhttps://t love to see what they're teaching? (Score:1)
Recall (Score:2)
Many people in a generation got to see, work with and use a computer.
The result was a UK generation that was just as average as every other UK educated generation.
With the cost of all the new computers to account for.
When France invested in new computer education? All the Thomson products for French education?
Same result as the UK. People got to use the computer and stayed as aver
More Pointless than "Everyone Should Code" (Score:1)
Took course last summer - it ws good (Score:1)
But, Finland isn't; real (Score:1)
Finally (Score:2)
Estonia (Score:2)
Estonia responds by teaching everyone brain surgery