What is a University President?

 What is the purpose of a University President? How has that purpose changed over the past century? We now clearly have a new set of such people and they seem to be implementers of agenda that are dramatically different that their predecessors 50 years ago and even more dramatically than 100 years ago.

 Excerpts from the Inaugural Address by Dr. Julius A. Stratton, eleventh President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, June 15, 1959.

 This institution was created by William Barton Rogers as an expression of faith in certain new concepts of professional education, and from the very outset our academic policies have been directed by a few central ideas. In essence, Rogers maintained that there is dignity and importance in the mastery of useful knowledge; that the foundations of a professional life may profitably be laid in the undergraduate years, combining with and contributing to a liberal education, to the enrichment of both; and that science and engineering can be the legitimate foundations of a higher education. M.I.T. has been built upon these convictions. The contributions of our graduates over the years both at home and abroad provide ample proof of their essential worth.

 The highest goal to which a university may aspire is that its sons and daughters shall be leaders in art and science and that their influence shall be brought powerfully to bear for the welfare of mankind. Throughout the entire history of the Institute, much of the strength of our educational plan has been derived from the rigor and thoroughness of our method. From the day he enters as a freshman, the undergraduate learns to work in depth and to be held accountable for the results. He learns also to work under pressure and to marshal and employ his knowledge under test.

 From this discipline and mastery of fundamentals comes an intellectual self-reliance that will stand him in good stead. But the formal instruction of lectures and classroom is properly only part of the educational process. The intellectual discipline of tests and problems must be supplemented and enlivened by other forces that will arouse and stimulate the impulses of originality latent in every student. We seek to stir our students’ imaginations, to encourage them to break free from the channels of conventional thought, and to teach them to bring to bear upon their problems the facts and methods acquired in the classroom.

 By its very nature, research demands originality in thought and action; and it is in research that the student as well as the faculty can find an outlet for creative interest and energy and share in the intellectual excitement of new discoveries. University research serves but half its purpose if it becomes remote and isolated from the students themselves.

 From his earliest history, man has been driven to build and to do, and the fulfillment of this urge finds its highest expression in the work of the engineer. The engineer is concerned with making and with producing, with converting the yields of pure science to useful products and services. His function is to adapt knowledge to beneficial ends, to find ways and means of solving the practical problems of human existence.

 There is therefore in the education of the engineer the most compelling reason to develop by all possible means the creative and constructive powers of each student. The contributions that the humanities and social sciences have to make to the education of the architect, the scientist, and the engineer have been clearly established.

 Over the past decade the Institute has won wide recognition for the support that has been given to these more liberal aspects of our curricula. The range of our professional activities at M.I.T. has for some time been steadily widening. We are concerned not alone with architecture, science, and engineering for their own sake, but increasingly with fields on which these disciplines have a direct impact in contemporary society. In addition to the obviously related fields of management and economics, we are also active in such areas as psychology, political science, international relations, and other social studies. …

 M.I.T. is a professional school and as such we have an obligation to impart to our students an understanding of both the privileges and responsibilities inherent in the professional estate. Above and beyond all technical competence, the truly professional man must be imbued with a sense of responsibility to employer and client, a high code of personal ethics, and a feeling of obligation to contribute to the public good.

 As a great educational institution, we shall fall short of our mission if we fail to inspire in our students a concern for things of the spirit as well as of the mind. By precept and example we must convey to them a respect for moral values, a sense of the duties of citizenship, a feeling for taste and style, and the capacity to recognize and enjoy the first-rate. M.I.T. is a product of our age. By its aims, its methods, and its ideals it is keyed to the needs and problems of the contemporary world.

 Today, more than ever, the measure of our greatness will be determined by our capacity to educate for leadership.

 JULIUS A. STRATTON

This was from the MIT catalog just before my Freshman year. It meant something then. The leadership of the Institute had made it through WW II and saw the need for continuing improvement and growth. The model worked for several more decades. Today, not so much.  Most of the senior leaders are not from MIT, they are culture warriors, promulgating social ideas often neo Marxist. The MIT of today is unrecognizable in the context of President Stratton's vision.

A Fourth World Country

 I live in New Jersey. The electricity fails often, the roads are ripped up, the water no longer works, crime runs rampant, and the taxes are the highest in the US, income and real estate. We have Government employees over paid and under worked. In general they seem top really dislike the taxpayers, after all we are paying their salaries.

So here I sit, water-less, road-less, rather insecure, and when questioning these useless lumps of humanity, I am being generous, they tell us we should just spend more money!

Oh, by the way. Tuesday is Election Day, there is no choice!

Wind Power and Bankers

 We lived through a decade of free money. It is now gone, and I suspect for quite a while. We in New Jersey also had 2 Governors who were former Goldman Sachs billionaires and thus one would have suspected that with this brain power and experience that they would have taken advantage of this period.

But as the NY Times notes:

Four projects that were supposed to provide electricity to New York City and its suburbs are in limbo after being denied big increases in subsidies. And on Tuesday, the world’s biggest developer of offshore wind farms shocked New Jersey officials by backing out of two projects off the state’s southern coast. “Macroeconomic factors” including inflation and rising interest rates had made the projects too expensive, the company said.

No surprise here. We could have had a new tunnel decades ago for free money and these wind farms could also have been done the same way. Instead we now have dead whales and dead wind farms. Macroeconomic factors aside, it just means that prior planning prevents poor performance. It did not happen in New Jersey. 

AI: What is it?

 The White House issued a dictum regarding AI. It begins as follows:

As part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s comprehensive strategy for responsible innovation, the Executive Order builds on previous actions the President has taken, including work that led to voluntary commitments from 15 leading companies to drive safe, secure, and trustworthy development of AI.

However, no where is AI defined! How can you regulate something you cannot define. This is not like pornography, namely you know it if you see it. Is pattern recognition AI? It has been around for half a century or more. How about speech recognition? How about cybernetics, and my old friend Norbert Wiener?

You cannot regulate something you cannot define. The Chevron doctrine will create a disaster. One wonders who put this document together. Take as an example, the 1996 Telecom Act. It is filled with definitions, so that regulators know what to do. But alas, as technology moves on, the definitions are no longer valid.

Consider the first demand:

Require that developers of the most powerful AI systems share their safety test results and other critical information with the U.S. government.

 Just what does this mean? Who are these developers and what does most powerful mean? How can you ascertain who that is? What is safe? Safe for whom? The document runs on with nonsensical statements one after the other. If this is made into law, which is the only legal enforceable way, then it will spend decades in court and technology will be running circles around the layers.

What I consider even more severe is that these 15 large companies will take actions to block out any other innovators or just buy them up! 

They continue:

Irresponsible uses of AI can lead to and deepen discrimination, bias, and other abuses in justice, healthcare, and housing. The Biden-Harris Administration has already taken action by publishing the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and issuing an Executive Order directing agencies to combat algorithmic discrimination, while enforcing existing authorities to protect people’s rights and safety. To ensure that AI advances equity and civil rights, the President directs the following additional actions: Provide clear guidance to landlords, Federal benefits programs, and federal contractors to keep AI algorithms from being used to exacerbate discrimination...

The laws already exist for non-discriminatory practices. So what is different with AI, whatever that may be? 

Perhaps Asimov was right by his simple three rules. 

Now Nature discusses the "rules" to govern AI. They argue:

 Other mainstays of regulation include registration, regular monitoring, reporting of incidents that could cause harm, and continuing education, for both users and regulators. Road safety offers lessons here. The car has transformed the lives of billions, but also causes harm. To mitigate risks, vehicle manufacturers need to comply with product safety standards; vehicles must be tested regularly; and there is compulsory driver training and licensing, along with an insurance-based legal framework to assess and apportion liability in the case of accidents. Regulation can even spur innovation. The introduction of emissions standards inspired the development of cleaner vehicles...Crucially, the safety of AI cannot be a matter for those working in computational disciplines to shoulder alone. Researchers who study ethics, equality and diversity in science, public engagement and technology policy all need to have a seat at the table. Social scientists from these areas should have been front and centre at the summit....Governments and corporations should not fear regulation. It enables technologies to develop and protects people from harm. And it need not come at the cost of innovation. In fact, setting firm boundaries could spur safer innovation within them.

 Again with this mass assembly on AI, again whatever it is, we see one should just think of Sherlock Holmes and The League of Red Headed Men, namely the assembly of red headed men who just wanted to rob the bank! Just try and get two people to define AI and see if they can agree. If you cannot define and measure something then it does not exist, at least it should not for regulators.