How MIT Has Changed ... Better or Worse

 During WW II MIT managed the Rad Labs, designing and implementing radar systems to protect US forces across the globe. Following that the technology developed led to the explosion of technology that became silicon valley as we know it.

Now MIT has entered the new world.  They note:

Part of ... postdoctoral research involves complementing her computational abilities by acquiring and improving her skills in biochemistry and cell biology, and tissue mechanics and engineering. Her current work on how clitoral anatomy relates to sexual function, especially after gynecological surgery, explores a topic that has seen little research, ... says, adding that her work could improve postoperative sexual function outcomes.

Yes, you read it right. No linger information theory, systems design, genetic structure, cancer research, but, well you can read it. Forty years ago a few MIT coeds published a Sex Survey, in "Thursday", a campus wide news sheet. It exploded with the Administration. Women rating male performance. But the above is now a fully funded research program. 

I wonder where MIT is going next. After its President being a Barbie aficionado, and doing nothing about the rampant antisemitism on campus, well one can just wonder.

AI Redux

 As usual, some one else is opining on AI, this time an MIT economist. As noted in the NY times:

David Autor seems an unlikely A.I. optimist. The labor economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is best known for his in-depth studies showing how much technology and trade have eroded the incomes of millions of American workers over the years. But Mr. Autor is now making the case that the new wave of technology — generative artificial intelligence, which can produce hyper-realistic images and video and convincingly imitate humans’ voices and writing — could reverse that trend. “A.I., if used well, can assist with restoring the middle-skill, middle-class heart of the U.S. labor market that has been hollowed out by automation and globalization,” Mr. Autor wrote in a paper that Noema Magazine published in February. Mr. Autor’s stance on A.I. looks like a stunning conversion for a longtime expert on technology’s work force casualties. But he said the facts had changed and so had his thinking. Modern A.I., Mr. Autor said, is a fundamentally different technology, opening the door to new possibilities. It can, he continued, change the economics of high-stakes decision-making so more people can take on some of the work that is now the province of elite, and expensive, experts like doctors, lawyers, software engineers and college professors. And if more people, including those without college degrees, can do more valuable work, they should be paid more, lifting more workers into the middle class.

 The advantage of being over eighty is that I have a memory of times distant. I am now more productive than I was sixty years ago. Why? Simply:

1. Word processing and spreadsheets. I can now create documents the way I think. Layer after layer, assembling like a puzzle, looking for the missing pieces and putting them together. I do not need a typist, no secretary. Wish I had an editor, but I do not rely upon AI ever doing that. Editors must not change the intent. I once had an editor who wanted co-authorship, for doing nothing, just inserting his thoughts. As for spreadsheets, in the old days they were massive sheets of numbers and calculators. Hours wasted, rigid thinking.

2. Search engines let me get what I want. I get to choose and seek out the best that reflects my intent. They are primary pieces of work. Perhaps with AI they will all be reflective of GIGO stuff! But now at least I can get some original work short of fraud.

3. Smart phones. I hate Apps, like to text and make calls if necessary. Real time access globally. Apps are what I see the walkers staring at when I cycle by.

4. Zoom, the initial attempt at multimedia. Kind of works, but still like human contact. Not easy any longer in NYC, likely to get assaulted of killed, retro to the Dinkins Days. Not easy at MIT since the gated the campus. Lots of equity but no access. That was then end of my donations.

5. Online books. I now buy the hardcover to get the online version. Rarely use the hardcover, easy to search the online. Hardcovers are great backdrops for Zoom calls.

Now I fear that AI will not add to this. 

As to doctors and lawyers, not really. Osler was famous for "if all else fails listen to the patient". AI is not really a good human listener, especially for symptoms and things that need understanding. As for lawyers, this is really game playing. One step to beat out a previous step. Lawyers often make a lot up on the fly.

On the convergence of law and medicine, I asked a few Docs who were praising AI in medicine, who do I sue when a patient is harmed. The response was "I guess I get sued" In fact liability for AI use is negligible. Lawyers will have a field day. Now consider AI and FDA approval. FDA may approve an AI engine as a medical device. But minutes after the approval the "device" just gathered more information, does it then make the device unapproved? This will be a field day for litigators. There is no law, no precedence.

AI, Just How Far?

 The Crimson has an interesting piece on AI and Medical Imaging. They note:

Harvard Medical School researchers and affiliates have discovered that the use of artificial intelligence in radiology is not universally beneficial, contrary to existing research. The study — released last Tuesday by researchers at MIT, Stanford, and the Rajpurkar Lab of Harvard Medical School — was a re-analysis of a previous study by the same researchers. Published in Nature, it centered on a high-performing AI model and studied its effectiveness in diagnosing patients based on chest X-rays. Pranav Rajpurkar, a Harvard Medical School professor who co-authored the study, emphasized the need for a more detailed understanding of AI in medicine. “While previous studies have shown the potential for AI to improve overall diagnostic accuracy, there was limited understanding of the individual-level impact on clinicians and what factors influence the effectiveness of AI assistance for each radiologist,” he wrote in an emailed statement. The study found that AI use in radiology “did not uniformly improve diagnostic accuracy, and could even hurt performance for some cases,” according to Kathy Yu, a researcher who was a member of the Rajpurkar Lab when the study was conducted.

 This is not at all surprising. When I first started to learn radiology one went through steps. Say one is looking at the lung. Start at the periphery, any fluids, compressions, nodules, then work in to see heart mediastinumn vasculature. Is there honeycombing, nodules etc. Namely there was a methodology developed over years of reading images.

In the days of pattern recognition, images were approached in a similar structured manner. However with AI one uses learning sets and then "trusts in the kindness of strangers" with some neural network. 

Thus one is hardly surprised.

GPS, Not So Much

 The NY Times has a piece of the vulnerability of GPS satellites. I have a long term involvement with GPS. In the 70s I taught a GPS course at GW University, for many sessions. I testified to Sen Kennedy's Committee, who feared Soviet advantage to missile attacks. But more importantly I designed the second backup navigation  system for Apollo, using a sextant and equipment for WW II fire control systems. Never thought it would be used until Apollo 13!

If GPS fails we always have maps and sextants. I still have my grandfathers. Plan Bs are critical. We always must avoid single thread systems. Maps are just fine. I still have a few in my cars. GPS and Garmin may not send me the best way, just their way. My sextant can always tell me where I am, just need a clock. I have a wind up watch! 

We have the problem of abandoning the past for the best of the present. Sometimes the present has problems. Always have a Plan B!!!!!

Perhaps you can rent my sextant and borrow my Bowditch. Worked for centuries.

Bridges and Harbors

 I grew up on Staten Island, only ferries to New York, before the Verrazzano. My grandfather was the Harbor Master during WW II so I got to know a lot of folks at the time. One of my lifeguard buddies was dating Justine Moran of the tugboat family so I got to see a lot of tugs. My uncle was a NY Fire Department Deputy Chief and in charge os such things as safety of the Verrazzano bridge, for fire and explosion reasons. As a lifeguard I watched summer by summer as the bridge was built, across the Narrows into the busiest shipping harbor in the US.

It was during the peak of the cold war and fear that a bomb would shut the harbor if it his the bridge. So the design was to insure that if it were hit it would not collapse and block the Narrows, but under great tension would swing back on State Island and Brooklyn. Needless to say a few folks in the way would be eliminated. Cold War thinking. 

One need look at the two bridges, the Verrazzano and the one in Baltimore. One bomb proof, albeit possibly slaughtering a few folks, and the second looking like a down scale Lionel train bridge. OK, I have to reveal I took some Civil Engineering courses and thus know a bit about bridges. The Baltimore one was a disaster from step one. 

Hopefully its replacement is more like the one in NYC, with perhaps a cold war view of life.

MIT Needs a Cleansing

 The NY Times presents a compelling article about MIT and its current management gross negligence. The legal papers filed are also compelling. This was not the MIT I spent years affiliated with. The Augean Stables need cleansing and perhaps this is the first step. The Times notes:

There is no excuse for hypocrisy. There is no excuse for harassment. It seems clear that M.I.T., Harvard and other campuses have failed to uphold their moral and legal responsibilities. Now it falls upon the engine of American justice to impose its consequences and to prove — to this generation and the ones that follow — that this truly is a government “which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

MIT just announced a Vice President for DEI. Yet Jews get persecuted for their presence. One should read the complaint, it is terrifying, and a shame on the grossly defective Administration.