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Finland's Ambitious Plan To Teach Anyone the Basics of AI (technologyreview.com)
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.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of Darwin Awards.
Table-ized A.I.
It's a Nordic country. There's a difference.
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/
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).
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
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.
-Styopa