Head of Paris's Top Tech University Says Secret To France's AI Boom Is Focus on Humanities (yahoo.com) 22
French universities are becoming hotbeds for AI innovation, attracting investors seeking the next tech breakthrough. Ecole Polytechnique, a 230-year-old institution near Paris, stands out with 57% of France's AI startup founders among its alumni, according to Dealroom data analyzed by Accel. The school's approach combines STEM education with humanities and military training, producing well-rounded entrepreneurs. "AI is now instilling every discipline the same way mathematics did years ago," said Dominique Rossin, the school's provost. "We really push our students out of their comfort zone and encourage them to try new subjects and discover new areas in science," he added.
France leads Europe in AI startup funding, securing $2.3 billion and outpacing the UK and Germany, according to Dealroom.
France leads Europe in AI startup funding, securing $2.3 billion and outpacing the UK and Germany, according to Dealroom.
Superlative much? (Score:4, Insightful)
But, to compare the impact of AI/ML to that of mathematics? Sorry, it's not there yet. Modern mathematics changed literally every field of expertise on the planet, in a pretty damn profound way. Yes, it's looking like there's a seriously lot of potential to ML. But, so far, this is what it's managed to do:
1. write a really killer 4-paragraph essay about otters,
2. Generate an infinite amount of uncanny-valley digital imagery
3. Help internet companies sell more ads.
4. Help HR people with their emails.
5. Maybe a few other things?
None of this is civilization-shaking. Maybe in the future, but not yet.
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I can't help but be cynical and say
6. Generate a fuckload of venture capital dollars chasing a fresh hype cycle (which I believe we are on the downward slope of)
But agree the statement "AI is now instilling every discipline the same way mathematics did years ago," is a pretty ludicrous statement.
These types of AI prognosticators really makes me think of the Malcom quote in Jurrasic Park:
"I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here: it didn't require any discipline to attain it
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Maybe but the thing with robotics, much like self driving cars, is that eventually peple have to be able to see the thing. Waymo has actual self driving vehichles, it's pretty cool but it's still in sorta research mode but they do exist and the cycle closed quickly.
Boston Dynamics seems to be leaps and bounds in front of human emulating robotics and yet they are still in research mode for that style of robot. Maybe someone catches up but crypto and AI are just code and servers and It seems like those hype
Another advertisement pretending to be news (Score:2)
How many times do we have to see a news article likely ghost written by the entity (university) being profiled?
Advertisement for
- French university
- Studying humanities instead of technology/stem
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None of this is civilization-shaking. Maybe in the future, but not yet.
I can appreciate why Stack Overflow laid off so much of their staff [theverge.com] due to AI concerns. Because it is easy to get pretty good working examples of code from AI as opposed to similar search queries.
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DuoLingo did the same thing. https://archive.is/hDsm9 [archive.is]
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It's not about the current impact. They comment on how AI "instils" into the disciplines that are being taught at the university. They mean they had to rewrite every bit to integrate AI. Nearly every programming topic must be rethought on how AI will (in the future) impact it, which is something you need to teach right now to the students.
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I also happen to believe that STEM people actually benefit from humanities training.
Hasn't been the policy for something like hundreds of years from every accredited university that students of STEM degrees would be required to take some minimum amount of humanities courses to graduate? I did a quick check of what a local university requires and it looks a lot like I recall, except now there's a "diversity and inclusion" part that I don't recall seeing before. Maybe this is a bit unique but I doubt it since every university will follow the same accreditation plans from the same instituti
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fuck off macTROLL
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I'm not arguing with the importance of AI.
I am. It's wasting a fuckton of resources for incredibly small returns. The sooner it dies a well-deserved death, the better off we will all be.
Don't be so open minded your brains fall out. (Score:3, Insightful)
From the fine article:
For Ãcole Polytechniqueâ(TM)s students, itâ(TM)s no coincidence that their well-rounded education, which focuses on refining their tech schools through a holistic lens, leaves them well-placed to handle every aspect of starting and growing a tech business, which relies on diplomacy as much as a good idea.
Diplomacy is definitely a good idea, and with any STEM program going back something like hundreds of years at this point there was an expectation that engineers and scientists would have to get some lessons on history and culture so that they'd be "diplomatic" when interacting with peers, management, and subordinates. I'm not sure what kind of point is being made here with some new focus on humanities in the mathematics and computer science behind AI. I have an idea where this is going and I don't like it.
I have something like a dozen examples in my head right now of university instructors trying to be politically correct and/or make social commentary in lessons on engineering, computer science, mathematics, statistics, and generally STEM courses. I could write quite the essay on these examples and what that told me about the state of university level education. Maybe one short example is seeing a computer science instructor spend half of a lecture just kind of ranting on how war is bad. Um, okay. Maybe she forgot that there were clearly ROTC students in her class, and it was the Department of Defense paying part of her salary. I was there (obviously) and my education was being paid by the GI Bill. Many of the students would likely go on to work in the defense industry, and "dual use" industries like launching satellites that could be for watching clouds. Maybe the clouds are spiral shaped like with a hurricane, or maybe mushroom shaped like with a detonation of weapons. War isn't good, but it's not all bad. We fought wars to stop dictators from systematically killing people, and while horrific to send people to kill the goal was to end the killing.
We have students of STEM also have to take some courses in the humanities so that they understand things like why we fought wars. While growing up I watched a lot of movies and TV shows about World War Two because Dad like WW2 stuff and he had control of the TV. I learned in history class that while WW2 was bad I had little idea on how World War One was in many ways far worse. WW1 was a time of rapid technological development and so there were people on horseback trying to fight with battle tanks. Chemical warfare was a thing. So, yes, war is bad. We need more focus on humanities to get good ideas from STEM into a growing tech business? How much more of a lesson did I need on this? I guess one of my computer science instructors felt a need to make this clearer, taking time away from linked lists or something to make the point that war is bad.
Again, I have many more examples in my head of instructors seeing a need to give lessons on humanities in the middle of a class that is supposed to be about science. I'm getting the impression that those getting STEM degrees from universities are not getting the same quantity and quality of "hard" science like they did just a dozen or so years ago. It's good to have some of the tools for being "diplomatic" but at some point that is distracting from the tools needed to be good engineers, scientists, and technicians.
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20+ years ago I didn't get a whiff of moralizing from my college professors, and there were no humanities requirements. I imagine that's changed since I was in school.
No humanities requirements? I find that difficult to believe. Maybe you are defining humanities a bit differently. Maybe this can help clear things up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I'm pretty sure that even 20 years ago you'd be require to take a course on history, a course on literature, and then at least one more course like psychology or philosophy. While I was at university those in electrical engineering didn't have to take a foreign language like the computer science majors but if they did the
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The Tech Bro who doesn't understand society or people, and who invents things that have existed for centuries but thinks they are new because now on the internet/with AI, has become a meme. For good reason.
Sometimes it works too. Uber invented taxis but on the internet (and illegal).
But really we should be trying to give future entrepreneurs a decently rounded education so that they doing end up doing that stuff.
humanities AI boom (Score:2)
Soon to be humanities AI bust, like every other boom cycle.
Back in the 80's ... (Score:2)
It was customary for every Silicon Valley company to have their own French genius.
And that genius more probably came out of the Inria than the X (Polytechnique).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Military (Score:2)
combines STEM education with humanities and military training
Summary forgot to mention that Ecole Polytechnque is top french military school. Most alumni do not have a career in the army but remain reserve officers.
French education encourages self thinking (Score:1)
real secret (Score:2)
The real secret of France's AI boom or any other high tech boom is (a) high quality secondary education in mathematics and CS, and (b) French not emigrating to the US in previous numbers. It's nice they get a well-rounded education, but no causal connection there, nor caudal either.