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Roger M. Kaye
A retired physicist reinvented as thriller novels writer

Machine Learning

Is this machine learning?  Free to Use Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

Oxford university has said it will “decolonise” computing degree courses.
(The Telegraph 19 Nov 2022)

The Quality Assurance Agency, that advises universities on degree standards, is demanding that that campus chiefs “go woke”. They want most currently taught subjects to be “decolonised”. They are worried about slavery links to machine learning.
Courses in computing, for example, should show “how divisions and hierarchies of colonial value are replicated and reinforced”. Maths courses “should present a multicultural and decolonised view”.

I, for one, have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. It doesn’t add up, it just subtracts from my understanding and multiplies the divisions in modern society. It certainly has no connection with the maths I used to learn in school, admittedly a long time ago. What possible links are there between machine learning and slavery.

Science courses, we are told, now include content that covers ethical and social issues. It is about time that electrons lose their negative reputation. Why should the proton be the only particle to be seen in a positive light? Students must learn how electrons, protons, and neutrons all live together in a social environment called an atom.

We can only hope that most students are either too sensible to accept this rubbish or, more likely, too busy drinking in the local pubs. And universities that are trying so hard to go woke may end up going broke as the real world loses interest.

And, if there are any readers who are not familiar with machine learning, a quick explanation is in order. Machine learning algorithms build a model that can make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed to do so. Now you know.

About the Author
The author has been living in Rehovot since making Aliya in 1970. A retired physicist, he divides his time between writing adventure novels, getting his sometimes unorthodox views on the world into print, and working in his garden. An enthusiastic skier and world traveller, the author has visited many countries. His first novels "Snow Job - a Len Palmer Mystery" and "Not My Job – a Second Len Palmer Mystery" are published for Amazon Kindle. The author is currently working on the third Len Palmer Mystery - "Do Your Job".