[FRIAM] the arc of ai (was Re: Whew!)

[Frank Wimberly]

Let's summarize.  I said I wish people would focus on the benefits of pre-K
education rather than the economic impacts of the tax and the effects on
diet.  I mentioned that my wife, who went to graduate school at the Harvard
Ed School, is a big proponent of pre-K.  Merle said that I missed the point
and that Jeff Skilling and Jared Kushner's father also went to Harvard.  I
said that Ted K went to Berkeley to make the case that having alumni in
prison is irrelevant.  Merle says it's not.

My wife hates being mentioned in this context. Let me tell you a little
more.  When she was at Harvard she worked with Jonathan Kozol to improve
educational opportunities for Puerto Rican toddlers in South Boston.  In
Pittsburgh she worked in a therapeutic Headstart program as head teacher to
offer pre-K education to high risk kids whose mothers were schizophrenic.
They were 3-4 years old and at least one of them witnessed the murder of
her mother. They were mostly African American and arrived at school very
hungry.  They ate at school.  This was done under the auspices of the
University of Pittsburgh Psychiatry Department.  There's more but...

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone (505) 670-9918

On May 6, 2017 9:15 AM, "Marcus Daniels" <marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote:

> Frank writes:
>
>
> "Which notorious person went to which university?  Why?"
>
>
> It’s a question of fairness and consistency relative to values, not a
> question of correct vs. incorrect.
>
>
> Here are two more personal experiences which I doubt I really need to give
> but I will for completeness.
>
> 1. A disruptive technology is reported in a peer-reviewed journal which I
> argue is worth considering.   I provide background (cited papers), and my
> colleague skims over the affiliations over the authors of those papers
> rather than reading the abstracts.
>
> 2. Our team arranges a meeting with a possible funding source and have a
> pitch prepared with preliminary results and working prototype code.
> First thing the person does is flip to the section with the staff bios to
> see which universities they attended.
>
> I could give many more examples of this kind of authority-based selection
> that I see every day.   I'm not arguing that there is nothing to this
> approach, or that it is complete ineffectual.   It depends on what the
> deciders are optimizing for.   One thing they could be optimizing is to
> ensure their collaborators are presentable and demonstrate a baseline of
> intelligence, and certain breadth and depth of knowledge.
>
> However, when such a person that otherwise would passes muster, puts out a
> document that starts from fairly common premises to surprising conclusions,
> that chain of reasoning might be subject to consideration.  Sure, if there
> is more context, like knowing in retrospect that the person was guilty of
> murder, then that may or may not cause them to discard consideration of the
> argument.    For me, it makes me more interested in understanding the
> motives and reasoning and to make sure I convince myself I have an idea of
> where they lost it.
>
> Marcus
>
>
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