
Finland’s plan to train its population in artificial intelligence - imartin2k
https://www.politico.eu/article/finland-one-percent-ai-artificial-intelligence-courses-learning-training/
======
high_derivative
Controversial opinion as a machine learning researcher:

Well roundedness (or teaching basic elements to many) will not pay off as
much, it would likely yield better results for the country to invest heavily
at the top.

Observation based on success of machine learning research in highly
concentrated organisations (certain universities in the US, DeepMind, etc)
versus countries with scattered expertise and resources (e.g. Germany).

If you can afford to, do both, but observationally, this does not seem to
happen. Not for a lack of resources but rather the mindset and a society's
perspective.

~~~
pasabagi
On the other hand, Finland punches massively above its weight when it comes to
tech in general - while the US, being the world's largest economy, punches
_at_ its weight. That would indicate the generally egalitarian Finish approach
is better than the darwinian US approach.

My feeling is that while the US is phenomenally good at delivering an
excellent education to a small set of extremely talented people, I get the
feeling that these people go on to not have enough free time to do really
interesting work, and rather end up devoting their lives to industry, which is
predominantly very conservative[1].

[1]: Obviously, I think this is offset by the fact that US industry is less
conservative and more interested in abstract research than it is in most other
countries, so you do get really cool research being done. But I think
generally speaking, this model isn't as effective as just letting most people
in society do more of the stuff that interests them, and less of the stuff
that doesn't.

~~~
hoaw
The whole idea that a country like Finland could create and maintain talent
without a domestic market is completely silly, if not entirely unsupported.
Which is also true for much of the US. Arguably even the Soviet Union
couldn't.

And if you actually had to choose between "top talent" and "mainstream appeal"
the latter has orders of magnitude better returns. A larger part of the modern
economy is built on that fact, including much of Silicon Valley.

If you could just invest in talent many countries would pass the US in no
time. But unsurprisingly those investments mostly yield handshakes and
cocktail parties.

~~~
pasabagi
I think Silicon Valley is quite a good refutation of your point, actually --
it was almost entirely founded on DARPA investing in talent. After all, they
funded everything from the first ICs to Chomsky.

I don't think mainstream appeal is irrelevant. I just think that if you fund
scientists and technologists to do the work they find interesting, they'll
produce something more fundamentally interesting and generally useful than if
you fund them to make great products. Great products, after all, include
things like Minecraft, pet rocks, and fidget spinners.

------
sakoht
Perhaps they can use their new found AI skills to detect and flag propaganda
from the tech industry.

~~~
sergioisidoro
So when it's some silicon valley tech company releasing something as part of
their tech marketing strategy it's fine, but when it's from Europe it's
"Propaganda"?

~~~
dmos62
I don't think grandparent's attempt at humour suggested that, but it's good
that you drew that parallel.

~~~
sergioisidoro
Well, it's not a secret that a lot of the content in HN is marketing content.
Usually from companies who want to market themselves among the tech community.

I'm not complaining. I learn a lot, and most of the times everyone wins. But
it's not the first time I find this US/Rest of the world double standard.

Maybe this was a knee jerk reaction from me to that pre existing notion

------
hyperpallium
Is AI settled enough that today's state-of-the-art is a stable foundation that
can be reliably built upon... or are revolutionary changes just around the
corner? Or, it is that the _application_ of some generic AI, that can use any
upcoming changes?

Perhaps we have a few more twenty year hype-winter cycles of NN before we know
what we're doing...

~~~
hyperpallium
> intention to "support democracy," ... raise awareness about the
> opportunities and risks of AI ... where they want their government to
> invest.

> "That’s how society works — if enough people say they don’t like it, then we
> regulate it,”

Agree, democracy needs uninformed voters. But the above was just the origin.

Now the course seems more like encouraging people to see applications of AI in
their regular work. Like pure vs applied maths. Agree: technology
transfer/commercialization of AI will be the richest industry the world has
ever seen.

[ Though it's a bit like applications of _computers_ [funfact: many software
ideas were initally called AI... like how subjects moved from philosophy to
science when they got actual facts]. Although computers are an "industry",
their applications are considered vertical, i.e. as part of the industry they
are applied to. Same thing happened to physics. So AI applications won't be
"an industry", but in every industry. ]

Another question is whether the application best starts from the AI end or the
application end. You need both, but at this early stage, it's still requires
an intertwined "integrated" collaboration. I don't think we're yet at the
point where you just add magic AI pixie dust to a problem.

But it can't hurt getting people introduced to it and thinking about it; and
the democratic point remains true.

------
roel_v
Can someone explain what is in this 'Elements of AI' course, since that
doesn't seem to be described in the article? I'm just having a hard imagining
what can be taught in a few months to e.g. the dentist in the article and
still be 'practical'.

~~~
anttipoi
[https://www.elementsofai.com](https://www.elementsofai.com)

It's not a course where you learn how to implement algorithms, but a general
introduction to the concepts and problems that typically are treated under the
label 'AI'.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
As usual, this is a course that completely ignores the first, oh, 60 or so
years of artificial intelligence research which were dominated by logic-based
AI, and places most of the focus on deep learning, as the only kind of machine
learning that it talks about at any length.

Sometimes, I despair. It's like AI started in 2012 - and was wrapped up the
same year. Deep neural nets, problem solved, AI is all done and dusted.

~~~
jks
Did you click through to the course? Chapter 2 is about search algorithms and
planning, albeit not in very much depth.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
Yes, of course I did. The relative attention given to the majority of work on
AI and the last six years or so is disproportionate, to say the least.

------
MrTonyD
I've always admired Sweden for committing to robotics (it was back in the 90's
I think, at a time when I was doing robotics work for Fanuc and GE). They went
from nothing to becoming a major robotics player over decades.

In contrast, I think committing to AI is a mistake - the market is
fundamentally different. To put it simply - there is lots and lots of work to
be done in robotics, over decades, while, in contrast, there is a big burst of
work to be done in AI, followed by relatively little work (compared to the
scale of robotics.) I admire Finland, and I hope somebody out there figures
out the business difference before they lose decades to opportunity cost.

------
xte
Oh yeaaaaaah... Like modern "coding mania" at school... Guys IT world is as
complex as a society: you can't train anyone to be a prime minister in such
society before train in being an educated citizen.

Most Finnish child can type on a Window PC with some proprietary (cr)app. They
can probably play games, watch porn sites, social networks etc and that's for
some older people seems to be like magic so they think that "programming" is
only a small subsequent step like you can study integrals just after
derivatives. And that's the ideal way to put people far from computer
disgusted by obscene software and absurd training.

~~~
tuukkah
_> they think that "programming" is only a small subsequent step_

No, they think programming is a basic skill (like reading, writing and
arithmetics) included from 1st to 9th grade in the national core curriculum:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/02/teachi...](https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/02/teaching-
computer-science-without-computers/517548/)

Details: [https://legroup.aalto.fi/2015/11/coding-in-school-finland-
ta...](https://legroup.aalto.fi/2015/11/coding-in-school-finland-takes-lead-
in-europe/)

~~~
xte
Thanks for the link however the point is simple: people who write those norms
have no idea what programming means and how it can be done in modern desktops.

If, and only of, we have modern Alto or LispM perhaps we can teach few
"programming" concept to let most scholarized people able to script/design
their own "home environment" on a desktop otherwise it's only a waste of time
especially if is done as classic high schools in Italy or Sweden (starting
with some Pascal dialect end try to offer C or JS after).

~~~
tuukkah
Finland doesn't do it like Italy or Sweden (let alone how they did it 20 years
ago). Instead, kids are more likely to start with Scratch or similar:
[https://scratch.mit.edu](https://scratch.mit.edu)

~~~
xte
I'm curious how they can get enough teachers. I mean people who now IT enough
not only to being able to actually "program" themselves for real a bit but
also teach to children.

In my personal experience even at universities (Italy with very limited
knowledge of Swedish unis) for IT-centric courses we have only _very few_
really competent teachers that also are able to communicate their competence
well, transmitting passion for the matter, drawing a big number of possible
evolution paths, instill the desire to explore autonomously, solving personal
problems etc...

Perhaps today's things have change but...

Oh, sooner or later we _need_ to seriously teach IT like we seriously teach
our motherlanguage because that's the actual nervous system of our society and
we not only should but must know it enough to being able to master the part
needed to our life and having an informed opinion on that topic to avoid
disastrous trends like today's one, only I really can't imaging how to form
enough people.

Even in casual events organized by LUG or few companies/universities I hear
casual conversation from "supposed" technicians that make me shiver or from
certain mailing lists...

~~~
tuukkah
In Finland, teaching is a respected profession with a Master's degree required
and teachers are paid a proper salary and given autonomy in the classroom in
return.

They don't have to be professional-grade developers - they are professionals
in general pedagogy and mentoring.

~~~
xte
I do not intend to judge the level of competence or respect of Finland's
teacher's only I'm _really_ curious how they were formed in the first place.

In general when something new appear (to stay, with success) we have a
pioneering phase that start to "form and initially spread" the new "thing".
This phase may be quick, however it have to be at least 5-8-10 years to be
"spread and know enough". After we have a "consolidation and popularization
phase" that normally last long, 10-15 years if it's quick, after it became
spread and know enough to have enough "thought currents", it have developed a
sort of "stable" philosophy etc. This is the stage we can start to form
teachers, normally for tech schools and universities. Only after a decade or
even a generation we can start to arrive at "initials schools" teachers.

Counting those years and see "IT age"... Well, we can say we are at start
phase of teaching in schools, so it's really hard to have enough competent and
"tested" teachers now...

Also about pedagogy and professionalism I remember a personal observation,
limited to universities, before I have observed too little: teachers with
professional background tend to know far better what they teach and normally
are more capable to communicate it. Teachers coming directly from academia
tend to know far less and are far less able not only to communicate but also
to create interest and transmit passion.

Of course that's not a valid statistics nor I can generalize it for the entire
world but... Well just as an example at first year of computer engineering
degree course I have a course in chemistry, the first part was held by an
teacher "definitively and proudly made in academia", it was a disaster not
only for me. The second part by an actual chemistry doctor coming from the
industry that start teaching to remain active instead of retire. For some
results was still poor for other me included was really well. The same for
economy course. The same for all subsequent courses and years. The third year
in particular nearly no one digest mathematical physics (a sort of variant of
rational mechanics adopted for a not-really-industrial engineering course),
the second semester another teacher results completely changes. For
essentially all.

Long story short: only few know how to transfer knowledge and I can call them
"pedagogues" do not caring to much if they study that subject or they are
naturally brought to teach. That's needed but not sufficient. Competence in
the field is also needed and for non-academic discipline it's hard to have
gained, metabolized and summarized enough to teach. Also passion for the
matter is needed and that's again should be trained and formed in years of
activities. Like a construction worker's that see if something is valid by
instinct even before actually calculate it. Only people with such experience
can properly teach. And while normally young schools are considered "easier"
to teach is at that stage that we really form our knowledge and start to
develop paradigms.

~~~
tuukkah
I should clarify that the context of my comments was grades 1-9 where the
content is fairly simple and the target level is nowhere near professional
skills. I'm not saying the teaching is perfect (it's always far from that) but
the results in other topics are good and I don't see why they wouldn't be good
in programming as well. If you're saying it's too early, I say the earlier we
get the virtuous cycle going the better (the previous generation of teachers
will teach the next generation to be better).

------
imhoguy
That is ideal direction - educating the non-IT people with domain knowledge
what tools the IT people can provide then both can work on solving real world
issues with AI. I predict lots of serious start-ups comming out of this
effort.

------
Mortiffer
Machine Learning is Alchemy
[https://youtu.be/x7psGHgatGM](https://youtu.be/x7psGHgatGM) . We need to
understand optimization to advance this field not train thousands of monkeys
to press play and hope for a nice result.

Also, why did they not decide to teach 1% of the population basic coding. Now
that could transform a society.

~~~
bemmu
Basic programming skills have been a part of the Finnish primary school
curriculum since 2016. By sixth grade students are expected to "create working
programs in a graphical programming environment". Junior high includes "basic
algorithmic thinking", more programming and embedded programming.

Likely in practice means trying out Scratch in primary school and creating
robots in junior high.

Source:
[https://peda.net/ulvila/peruskoulut/harjunp%C3%A4%C3%A4n-kou...](https://peda.net/ulvila/peruskoulut/harjunp%C3%A4%C3%A4n-koulu/opetus/ol2/tjvs/oo2/oop)

------
goldenkey
Most machine learning models are nothing but souped up regression that swaps
out standard polynomials for matrix-valued polynomials with some x'es replaced
by non-linear activation functions like tanh(x)

The magic is in the toolkits that allow one to build these complex expressions
through net chain composition, and provide symbolic differentiation to easily
calculate gradient on hugely complex net chain graphs.

The avg person isn't going to benefit from ML unless you also teach them the
old-hat statistical fitting methods that worked well enough before ML came on
the scene.

Things like SVD, MPCA:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_value_decomposition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_value_decomposition)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilinear_principal_componen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilinear_principal_component_analysis)

Old stats techniques like:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elastic_net_regularization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elastic_net_regularization)

Its not worth training a bunch of folk who cant go deep into the heavy
mathematics, statistics, and epistomology of what ML really is in terms of
manifolds.

Just show them what ML can and cannot do, if its not possible to give them the
comprehensive education. And besides, most people, once they find out ML is a
shit ton of math and as profound and based as the theory of functions, shakes
their head and trods off. They wanted magic soup and you gave them the biggest
questions about existence..about patterns..forms..things..about consciousness,
intelligence, and life, about meaning.

Don't expect the avg lowbrow person to want to explore ML once they get hit
with the reality of its implications, rigor, and depth.

~~~
zozbot123
> Most machine learning models are nothing but souped up regression that swaps
> out standard polynomials for matrix-valued polynomials with some x'es
> replaced by non-linear activation functions like tanh(x)

Well, not quite. The non-linear activation feature is found already in
"generalized linear models" (as a 'link function'). The typical "deep
learning" model is a hierarchical/multi-level version of the same - and just
like any other hierarchical/multi-level model, the point of that is to account
in a parsimonious way for increasingly-complicated _interactions_ among the
regressors/features. But I think your broader point is right; there is a lot
of hype in ML that derives purely from a lack of familiarity with basic
statistical principles.

------
vidoc
That's why we should all vape !

------
sqldba
It wasn’t clear if this is the Elements of AI course or another course.

~~~
leke
I remember signing up for this a while back, but never found the time to take
it. I assume it's the same course because I remember the website looking so
"trendy"

------
ekswisey
This is rather old news already by now. It's been a few months

