Comments to T4.4. Absolute Reference Task

The DSS task with the spreadsheet was done by the majority of the students properly, using the correct formulas connecting one parametric cell (Inflation Rate) to all cells in the Future Cost column and eventually changing Future Profit cells too by changing ONLY ONE Inflation Rate cell.

Do the required reading of Excel tutorial on absolute reference or google any other tutorial on absolute and relative references. Notice that if the formula is done with the use of absolute reference than it can be copied to ALL other cells of the column and the result will still be correct although it refers to same one Inflation Rate cell. If yo do not use absolute reference that you will have either insert 1.04 manually in all cells or the copying from one cell of the same column to other column cells will not work!

Comment on AI

Speaking of neural networks... You all heard that the machine is only as smart as the smarts that man puts into it. Well, this is not true. A huge part of modern AI is dedicated to machine learning, when AI systems can learn and become MUCH smarter than all programmers put together. But... they learn differently and their “smarts” might be different from human. For example,the system charged with keeping water in NYC clean might start adding poison to the drinking water after concluding that the problem of dirty water is in human activity. It means that a bunch of other thoughts and moral judgments should be included in the systems that can potentially harm people.

Another anecdotal case of different ways that AI learns was the failure in DoD project, when the system had to take millions of photos made by American spy satellites and find the tanks on those photos. In the final analysis the system was ably to pinpoint tanks on many photos but NOT SEEING the obvious tanks on others. After a long study of human and computer psychologists of the cause of that failure they found out that the system was taught to understand that there is a tank by using photos done during sunny days. In some forms of AI it is possible to check how exactly the learning goes, what is the logic, etc. But in some forms of AI (like neural networks) nobody knows how the system learns and thinks. You just have to TRUST it. So it turned out that in the case of tank recognition system devised its own way (somewhat inhumane) in deciding if there is a tank there – by the presence of its shadow! Then if on a gloomy day there was no shadow – there was no tank.

SQL Video Lecture

Use the vido lecture on the work with SQL queries here

Our Course, Web 2.0, and Actual Participation Effort in it

Since we are studying the essence and use of information systems in various environments – this course designed to be an example of such system itself, offering students practical experience in such systems in modern online collaborative situations. The multiple feedbacks (remember systems) in my replies, emails, grades, blog posts, as well as other students’ reviews and comments, as well as error messages when you do something wrong in your labs – all serves the purpose of correcting and improving the functionality of this Learning/Training System. In addition you learn to create a variety of small information systems tied up in a bigger conglomerate in your blogs, that include (in addition to your Moodle experience) various cloud services (like zoho), external apps (that are served into your blogs – there was an assignment on doing this), your own models and programs done in spreadsheet and database tools.

But what is important to understand in this Web 2.0 style interactions and user-created content (your research posts) that the effectiveness of such systems is based NOT ONLY on technical implementation of eth multitude of information flows and corrective feedbacks but also on participants’ desire and ability of READING and USING them in a timely fashion (which some students failed to demonstrate). There still is some time left to change this pattern which is seen (in the context of this course) not just as lack of online attendance (checking the changes in the system requiring individual responses), not just as lack of effort (in acting on these feedbacks) but as a failure in understanding of how such systems work and a failure in the meta-lab work and experience which is the PROPER participation in this course-as-a-platform for learning advances.

I advise the students to look at the course, understand its design and work again from the point of view of the newly acquired IS-understanding, which will greatly increase the learning effect for the time spent (bigger bang for the buck J )