Author Archives: Michael
A note from Northeastern. This was nice to see!
Awesome to see it in print like this! #Dissertation #Proquest
Imagine if your computer had an automatic reason-checker, alongside the spell-checker
Select Quotes:
11:20 “Professor Chris Reed is working with the BBC on reason-checking tools, to supplement fact-checking, using AI techniques known as ‘argument technology’.” Select quotes below.
11:59 “And by argument we don’t mean row [squabble]. We mean a reasoned series of steps drawing to a conclusion”
12:36 “It brings together the facts, history, and context which are crucial for a clear picture. And it could highlight key facts during political debates.”
13:52 “Once we’ve got this ability to analyze the structure of argument and debate and build up these huge maps of all of the ideas, the bits of evidence, the claims and counterclaims, and how they all interact. The way in which a news organization makes reference to a scientific article. The way in which tweets follow up on that news article. The way in which those tweets are then referred to by other news sources and that whole train is then picked up in a formal discussion in parliament and then reported back into the media. There’s this web of argumentation and debate…”
14:28 “…and that web, if we can make it available to people, if we can surface the arguments and the disagreements and the evidence and indeed the counter-evidence, then perhaps we can start to tackle some of these deep societal issues like misinformation and fake news”
15:25 “Imagine if your computer had an automatic reason-checker, alongside the spell-checker. It could help you construct stronger arguments and see things from other perspectives.”
16:03 “Like fact-checkers, argument AI is more about clarifying and adding context than proving points right or wrong. When intelligence analysts discuss potential threats, AI could join the conversation, challenging their arguments, to avoid unnecessary conflicts.”
Admissions Criteria and First-Year Academic Success – Stepwise regression in SPSS
Financial Aid Optimization Process 2 of 2 – Sample extract file format
The census file and the bi-weekly interim files all have the same format. With this process, most of the time is spent ensuring that the data file is clean and properly configured. Below is a data dictionary of a sample file.
Process Flow Diagrams – Enrollment Operations Example
Why create process flow diagrams? Because it helps to have an official way of doing things. It helps with the onboarding of new employees. Having documented process flows forces you to sit down with all the stakeholders and reexamine the routine and its assumptions. What processes are dependent on others?
What processes can be run concurrently? What processes can be eliminated or replaced? Who needs to be involved? Where can time be saved? Here is a sample.
Year in Review: Exercise
During the pandemic, I committed to exercising regularly. Here’s a simple snapshot of a year’s worth of data. The dropoffs happened after Thanksgiving and right before my dissertation defense. Need to work on maintaining the habit during the holidays and periods of stress.
Takeaways from The Social Dilemma
A year ago, I tweeted about #TheSocialDilemma. I figured I should also create a post about it https://twitter.com/michaelurmeneta/status/1307853103430066176
- “For the last 10 years, the biggest companies in Silicon Valley have been the business of selling their users” – Roger McNamee
- The classic saying is that “If you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product” – recounted by Tristan Harris
- “Its the gradual, slight, imperceptible change in your own behavior and perception that is the product” – Jaron Lanier
- “There are only two industries that call their customers “users”: illegal drugs and software” – Edward Tufte
- “…we have a digital pacifier for ourselves that is kind of atrophying our own ability to deal with (when we’re uncomfortable or lonely or uncertain or afraid).” – Tristan Harris
- “Processing power has increased a trillion times. Nothing else has evolved that fast. Cars are roughly twice as fast. Our brains have not evolved at all.” – Randy Fernando
- “What people are missing is that AI already runs the world today right now.” – Tristan Harris
- “AI is a metaphor” – Justin Rosenstein
- “We’re all looking out for the moment when technology would overwhelm human strengths and intelligence. When is it gonna cross the singularity, replace our jobs, be smarter than humans? But there’s this much earlier moment when technology exceeds and overwhelms human weakness.” – Tristan Harris
- “This point being crossed is at the root of addiction, polarization, radicalization, outrage-ification, vanity-ification, the entire thing. This is overpowering human nature and this is checkmate on humanity.” – Tristan Harris
- “There’s an MIT study that fake news on Twitter spreads six times faster than true news.” – Tristan Harris
- “We’ve created a system that biases towards false information. Not because we want to, but because false information makes the companies more money than the truth. The truth is boring”. -Sandy Parakilas
- “What we’re seeing is a global assault on democracy. Most of the countries targeted are countries that run democratic elections… We in the tech industry have created the tools to destabilize and erode the fabric of society in every country all at once everywhere.” – Tristan Harris
- “The manipulation by third parties is not a hack. The Russians didn’t hack Facebook. What they did was they used the tools that Facebook created for legitimate advertisers and legitimate users, and they applied it to a nefarious purpose.” -Roger McNamee
- “We are allowing the technologists to frame this as a problem that they’re equipped to solve. That’s a lie. People talk about AI as if it will know truth. AI’s not gonna solve these problems. AI cannot solve the problem of fake news – Cathy O’Neil
- “If we don’t agree on what is true or that there is such a thing as truth, we’re toast. This is the problem beneath other problems” – Tristan Harris
- “There’s no fiscal reason for these companies to change and that is why I think we need regulation…. tax these companies on the data assets that they have. It gives them a fiscal reason to not acquire every piece of data on the planet” – Joe Toscano
- “We have almost no laws around digital privacy” -Sandy Parakilas
- “Notice that many people in the tech industry don’t give these devices to their own children.” – Tristan Harris
- “What a computer is to me is it’s the most remarkable too that we’ve ever come up with. And it’s the equivalent for a bicycle for our minds.” – Steve Jobs
- “The attention extraction model is not how we want to treat human beings. The fabric of a healthy society depends on us getting off this corrosive business model. We can demand that these products be designed humanely. We can demand to not be treated as an extractable resource. The intention could be: “How do we make the world better?” – Tristan Harris
Financial Aid Optimization Process 1 of 2 – Overview
I have worked with Ruffalo Noel Levitz, Maguire Associates, and Hardwick Day (now EAB). They all follow a similar process.
- Start with the big picture
- Take 3-5 years of data and look at the numbers in the aggregate
- Calculate the highs and lows
- Do a Monte Carlo simulation to determine the most likely data ranges (80% or other acceptable confidence level)
- Perform scenario planning using the above as upper and lower bounds
- So it in person
- Include all necessary parties