AI vs The Reference Librarian

 In an old movie with Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn called the Desk Set, Hepburn plays a 1940ish Reference Librarian. Namely some one in the company asked a question and she and her team came up with the answer. Segue to 1970s at MIT. We had Reference Librarians. They were well educated and specialists. Thus if I had a question about some progress in the nascent field on DNA, just about twenty years old by then, I would meet the Reference Librarian and we would have an interrogatory and some brief time later, days usually, I would be gotten back by them and would have my answers and a details list of reference back up. 

My interactions were in a dialog form and my backup was both a list of references and hard copies of the most important ones. No computers, good interrogatories  and detailed results.

The Librarian did not generate anything new, just collected and summarized the data available. 

So what is AI? A computerized Reference Librarian who consumes massive amount of electricity for which the consumer is bearing the costs. My old Reference Librarian consumer de minimis electricity. Also she was quite pleasant and thorough. 

So what is AI?  

Hiroshima vs Manilla

 

Manilla, late 1944, after US landed and took over. Most of the damage was caused by Japanese. This is what the US was looking for if they tried to invade Japan a year later. It was often worse than Dresden. Just an observation.

My Flowers are Blooming

 Many of my daylilies are coming out. Worth a look.

Some Thoughts on College Admission

 Back in 1960, MIT admissions required an application, mostly your address and school, a school record, and SAT scores. No essay, no list of parent funded research at some exotic location, no letter of recommendation from Nobel Prize winners, no pictures of the erstwhile student feeding starving children in some war torn country. Just grades. Also yearly tuition was $750 as was room and board. One could make that working hard over the summer so no student loans were necessary. One just had to be smart, hard working, and focused.

Thus a large group was from New York City, a lot were Jewish or friends of them. Many came from first class City schools or some quality Catholic High Schools. 

Now such students would have zero chance. The new cadre are either socially deprived, or family funded. Hard working city kids would never even get close. But it was those hardworking city kids that built trillion dollar start ups! 

We managed to get through the Vietnam War days with little disruption, although I got to know the Rosa Luxemburg SDS folks, mostly wandering down from Harvard.

The new Administrations have become social brewing pots, collecting the strangest group of social justice warriors possible. The Administration has ballooned into a social justice warrior enclave, a self perpetuating mass of hangers on who are over paid and under educated. 

What will happen to this institution? 

The Idiocy of Commencement Speakers

 I received my doctoral degrees in 1971. It was still amidst the Vietnam War and a year after the massacre at Kent State. The President of MIT, Prof Howard Johnson, just congratulated the graduates, no outside speakers, and no class Presidents. Just get the degree, show the family and friends and then get lunch! Commencement was a day for the graduates. The last thing we needed was some artificial pompous person pontificating on what we should be doing. Just get a job, avoid getting drafted, and become productive. Yet there we no jobs, Nixon had crashed the economy, the War continued, and getting productive was seeking out opportunities at McDonald's!

Come 2025 at MIT we see some Internet comedian giving advice to students who all seem clueless about the reality of life. That was followed by some political radical bemoaning her fate while apparently dissing many students who were too clueless to understand. 

Do Universities have problems? If one examines Commencements then one sees that they sure do. 

As for foreign students it is worth examining the MIT records. 

Remembering the Lost at the Battle of Surigao Straits

The following men were lost on my father's ship, DD-649, The Albert W Grant in the battle of Surigao Strait, most by friendly fire from the Light Cruiser Denver.

  Last Name                     First Name                        Position
Alexander                        Theodore Leroy           MM
Asmore                            Floyd Vernon               MM
Brannan                           Robert Joseph              EM
Cahiea                              William R.                   F
Cairns                              Clyde A.                       MM
Carlson                            Wallace K.                   CPO RM
Carson                              Clyde                            Ensign, Torpedo
Cheek                               Daniel Smith                S
Couette                            Armand N.                   TM
Cunningham                    Edwin James                MM
Davis                                Wilson Howard            CPO EM
Ellis                                  Milford                         CPO WT
Kuebker                           Kenton W.                    Bkr
Kusheloff                         Joseph Myer                 RM
Lee                                   William Danual           S
Luketic                             Anthony Rudolph        F
Markham                         Walter                          MM
Martin                              Joseph Eugene             PhM
Mathias                            Eugene                         RM
Mathieu                            Charles Akin                Lt jg Medical
McElroy                           Warren M.                    CPO MM
McGee                             James Carey                 S
McInturff                         Thomas Samuel           S
Messer                             James Henry                S
Noel                                 Claudius                       RM
Pack                                 Arless A.                      F
Rathburn                          Frederick H.                 TM
Roberts                            Earl Franklin                MM
Rothe                               Donald Terrance          F
Sarver                              Milton Dwight             S
Selleck                             William Marrtin           RM 1C
Springer                           Fred W.                        WT
Stephenson                      James Winfred             MM
Surprenant                       Donal Rosaric              CPO WT
Ward                                Francis Irvin                 CPO MM 

Weber                                                                   MM