Value Driven Data Science: Boost your impact. Earn what you’re worth. Rewrite your career algorithm.

00:00:00 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Hello and welcome to value driven data science brought to you by Genevieve Hayes Consulting I'm doctor Genevieve Hayes and today I'm joined once again by Doctor David Joyner for the second part of the conversation we started in the previous episode of this podcast. Last time David and I talked about Georgia Tech's
00:00:21 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Pioneering online Master of Science in computer science or OMSCS programme. But in today's episode we're gonna talk about chat GP.
00:00:32 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Key and its implications for the future of education and business in general. David. Welcome back to the show.
00:00:39 Dr David Joyner
Thank you so much for having me back listen.
00:00:42 Dr Genevieve Hayes
As I mentioned in the last episode, David is the Executive director of online Education and the OMSCS at Georgia Tech College of Computing and is the author of the recently released teaching at Sky.
00:00:56 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Yeah, he teaches is at 5 different courses on at Georgia Tech.
00:01:00 Dr David Joyner
Yeah, each five courses total 4 our graduate courses. One is an undergraduate course.
00:01:05 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Of greatest relevance to this episode, though, are two of the courses city teachers which are in knowledge based artificial intelligence and human computer interaction.
00:01:15 Dr David Joyner
Very appropriate for our time.
00:01:17 Dr Genevieve Hayes
David, before we cut back to our previous conversation, can you tell us what human computer interaction means?
00:01:24 Dr David Joyner
Yeah, so it really looks at how do people interact with computers at the risk of restating the the it's it's. It's interested in this.
00:01:32 Dr David Joyner
Like how people use computers to accomplish some separate tasks, how computers can be partners to people, how computers can be kind of an interface between people and some underlying project or goal they're trying to accomplish more.
00:01:46 Dr David Joyner
And more though.
00:01:47 Dr David Joyner
With the advent of AI, I think we're really interested in how people in AI interact.
00:01:52 Dr David Joyner
And you know.
00:01:52 Dr David Joyner
Chat bots are one interesting example of that, because there are places where we're trying to interact with people on their own terms. Historically in development of computers, you know we started.
00:02:01 Dr David Joyner
Off with command line interfaces and things like that, and so you look back in the early people.
00:02:06 Dr David Joyner
Who work with computers?
00:02:07 Dr David Joyner
It was a very specialised tool set. It's evolved more and more to where you know graphical user interfaces are things that anyone can know.
00:02:14 Dr David Joyner
Pull out their phone. You can give it to a one year old and they can figure out you know. Tap the colours and the balloons, pop and things like that. Now we're getting to a point where we can really.
00:02:22 Dr David Joyner
Have computers interacting with people on our own terms. You know in our own language and natural language, which is really what chat box and and voice interfaces are really all about, and so I'd say with regards to what we're talking about today, what we're interested in is we've gotten closer than ever to the point where human computer interaction.
00:02:42 Dr David Joyner
Is computers interacting on the same terms and in?
00:02:46 Dr David Joyner
The same language.
00:02:47 Dr David Joyner
That humans use to interact with one another as opposed to what has been in the past or which has been where humans have to learn to speak the language of a compute.
00:02:56 Dr Genevieve Hayes
For our listeners, I'm now going to cut to the second part of the conversation. David and I started in the previous episode.
00:03:02 Dr Genevieve Hayes
We'll begin by finishing our discussion of OMSCS and then shift into talking about chat. GPT and its implications for the future of education and business in general. Even with a programme like Georgia Tech, which is affordable.
00:03:17 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And which allowed someone like me who is working full time to do a degree without having to uproots to Atlanta. And it allowed me to keep paying my mortgage the whole time.
00:03:27 Dr David Joyner
Roof over my head. It's all sounds nice.
00:03:29 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Yeah, happy I didn't go bankrupt. You know. Even then it's not practical to do, you know, teen OMSCS degrees in your life. So suppose you've got a data scientist who.
00:03:41 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Who's you know they've done their original on campus degree? Then they go back and do their OMSCS degree and then the world keeps developing.
00:03:50 Dr Genevieve Hayes
How would you recommend that someone like that keep up to date after they've you know done their OMSCS degree?
00:03:58 Dr David Joyner
Yeah, no, I think it's an interesting one. I think that's less of a.
00:04:00 Dr David Joyner
Question for them and more of.
00:04:01 Dr David Joyner
A question for us.
00:04:02 Dr David Joyner
Actually, because like you said, you know we're at a point in the development of us, you know, finishing our 9th year where you know there are people who graduate, like around when you graduated, who will now look at our course list and say, you know, there's 10 new courses you've lost since I.
00:04:16 Dr David Joyner
Took the programme that would love to.
00:04:18 Dr David Joyner
Can I get a second masters? Since yes from from Georgia Tech and the answer is no, we don't there.
00:04:22 Dr David Joyner
There's no concept of doing a second degree. You know. Second equivalent degree in the.
00:04:26 Dr David Joyner
Same field at the same.
00:04:27 Dr David Joyner
You know university. We at least at Georgia Tech. You know once you've graduated, you can come back and take classes for as long as you want and pay the same tuition and things like that and get grades and they go on your transcript. And so you're you're.
00:04:39 Dr David Joyner
Don't do, but they're just, you know they're just extra items on your transcript. I think it's a question.
00:04:45 Dr David Joyner
For us of.
00:04:46 Dr David Joyner
What do we do in this realm of how do we facilitate lifetime?
00:04:50 Dr David Joyner
You know lifelong learning in this area. One thing I want to do is, you know we have this asset of the OMSCS programme being so large.
00:05:00 Dr David Joyner
It means there's no reason why we couldn't build new programmes that build on that foundation and share some classes and offer something new like a certificate.
00:05:08 Dr David Joyner
Programme in something specific that you know. If you've already finished the NCS programme you want, come back and specialise and you'll learn more about machine learning just when you were in the programme you focused on your software engineering.
00:05:21 Dr David Joyner
Kind of thing.
00:05:22 Dr David Joyner
It's no reason why we can't build a new new credential kind of post masters credential and use our existing course infrastructure.
00:05:30 Dr David Joyner
Now, the challenge that is very often the case.
00:05:32 Dr David Joyner
If you now.
00:05:33 Dr David Joyner
The only way, as a university you can afford to do that is if you know you're going to have a decent.
00:05:38 Dr David Joyner
Number of students who are interested, which is kind of.
00:05:40 Dr David Joyner
It's it's always.
00:05:40 Dr David Joyner
Hard to gauge. You could invest 10s of thousands of dollars into a programme that no one enrols
00:05:46 Dr David Joyner
Our size means that we have the capability to say we already know there's 500 people taking that class every semester and that class every semester and that class every semester.
00:05:55 Dr David Joyner
Why don't we bundle them up into a new credential and say if you've already done a masters either here or elsewhere and you just want to specialise in that topic, or you can come back, join these classes that are already going to be happening and get this additional credential. So I think it's you know it's something for us to figure out more than.
00:06:12 Dr David Joyner
Anything there are options for people right now like we were talking about Udemy and Udacity and all the the non credit courses on edx and Coursera and all the different Youtubers who are teaching everything and things like that.
00:06:24 Dr David Joyner
There's a lot of places to learn from it, but there's a reason why you know, even despite the fact that our I mean that's something interesting about homes, yes.
00:06:33 Dr David Joyner
Our content is available publicly. Anybody can go and watch almost any one of our.
00:06:37 Dr David Joyner
Classes from start to finish, right?
00:06:39 Dr David Joyner
Now, so why do people enrol? Well, there's something you get out of enrollment that's you know, you get the learning experience.
00:06:44 Dr David Joyner
Get the support you get the assessments and you get the credentials saying at the end of the day that you earned and achieve something, and that's that's significant. So I think the the knowledge is out there already, but we as universities especially have to build.
00:06:59 Dr David Joyner
Something that's worth coming to and gives a a bigger carrot than just, you know, you've returned after five years you took quantum computing and now you get another a on your transcript.
00:07:11 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And we all know that there's a difference between working through the course videos and actually striving to not fail the course.
00:07:19 Dr David Joyner
Yeah, we actually we did an.
00:07:20 Dr David Joyner
Analysis A while ago where we actually looked at as a site where students leave reviews for the for the courses.
00:07:27 Dr David Joyner
I won't say the name because every time I say the name it changes names and one goes down and one goes up so.
00:07:32 Dr David Joyner
But there are sites publicly where people leave reviews and one thing they rank is the the number.
00:07:37 Dr David Joyner
Of credit hours now sorry.
00:07:38 Dr David Joyner
The number of hours of work, of course.
00:07:40 Dr David Joyner
Took and it's.
00:07:41 Dr David Joyner
The the range is enormous. I think the lowest is 4 hours for per week for of course the highest I think is.
00:07:48 Dr David Joyner
40 and I was the course developer for one of the ones that people rate at 40 and I I believe that it's it's a a a tough course that expects you to kind of learn a whole new development framework every three weeks.
00:08:00 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I know the one you're talking about, yeah?
00:08:02 Dr David Joyner
So we looked at that and we.
00:08:03 Dr David Joyner
Actually looked at the average estimate for how long?
00:08:06 Dr David Joyner
The course required.
00:08:07 Dr David Joyner
And then compared that to the total runtime of the videos in the course and for pretty much every course it was between 5 and 10% that the total runtime of the course was five to 10% of the average time. People said they were spending on court, and so.
00:08:23 Dr David Joyner
Actually, you know, watching that is a very small portion of that learning. Even at the learning experience it was just a case of watch the videos and take one exam at the end.
00:08:31 Dr David Joyner
That's you know, fine from book World. And you know, maybe you learn a lot out of it and maybe you don't.
00:08:36 Dr David Joyner
But I think that learning experience of actually having real authentic projects and assessments to do, which is one thing I'm most proud of in that that programme.
00:08:44 Dr David Joyner
I'll never forget that.
00:08:46 Dr David Joyner
I had a conversation with someone.
00:08:47 Dr David Joyner
I guess now it's five or six years ago.
00:08:49 Dr David Joyner
We're pretty new.
00:08:51 Dr David Joyner
And we talked about the OMSCS programme for.
00:08:53 Dr David Joyner
While and and at the end, you know we. We talked for 30 or 45 minutes and at the end it was a real sceptic about whether or not this was a good learning experience.
00:09:02 Dr David Joyner
It kind of felt like you're just you're pretending.
00:09:05 Dr David Joyner
To be a good learning experience for the sake of making fun.
00:09:07 Dr David Joyner
And things like that. And at the end he said you.
00:09:10 Dr David Joyner
Know I'm glad you.
00:09:11 Dr David Joyner
Believe in what?
00:09:11 Dr David Joyner
You're doing, I just don't believe that you can.
00:09:14 Dr David Joyner
Give a masters degree on the basis.
00:09:15 Dr David Joyner
Have a bunch of multiple choice tests.
00:09:18 Dr David Joyner
And it made me realise you have such a fundamental misconception about what we're doing. Because we are, you know, my PhD student Bobby.
00:09:26 Dr David Joyner
She actually did.
00:09:27 Dr David Joyner
An analysis to go through and find out what do student you know. How is our students grades determined and how are they graded and found that 40% of students grades across the programme are?
00:09:37 Dr David Joyner
Based on projects, an additional 25% I believe are based on kind of homeworks labs, smaller things than projects, but not, you know, multiple choice test.
00:09:48 Dr David Joyner
Only 25% were actually based on tests and quizzes and then 75% of all student work that you would do on average of the course of your programme would be graded in whole or in part by humans, and so it wasn't this kind of you know. Just do a multiple choice test at the end of each semester to prove that you deserve that three credit hours.
00:10:09 Dr David Joyner
It was a real authentic learning experience all throughout.
00:10:13 Dr David Joyner
That's why I think we're confident in what we're doing here because it's it's the same kind of thing we ask our on campus students to do, if not more so, because on campus I think we we sometimes fall into that trap on campus.
00:10:24 Dr David Joyner
Of I saw you come to my class three times a week for.
00:10:28 Dr David Joyner
An entire semester.
00:10:29 Dr David Joyner
I'll assume you learned something during that time and.
00:10:31 Dr David Joyner
Here's your a online.
00:10:33 Dr David Joyner
I I never saw you.
00:10:34 Dr David Joyner
I have to make you do stuff to prove you learn the content. I think it's actually ends up even being more challenging, but the stuff that we ask students to do to prove it is authentic.
00:10:43 Dr David Joyner
It's, you know, essays and lab experiments, and, you know, projects, not just.
00:10:49 Dr David Joyner
You know little quizzes and.
00:10:50 Dr David Joyner
ABC D kind of thing.
00:10:52 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Yeah, I know when I was doing I was many courses. I was submitting a full blown assignment every two weeks I remember and your course has always had basically a assignment or an exam. Basically every week or every other week.
00:11:08 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Charles Isbell's machine learning course. We had four assignments and those words were massive and two exams for the whole of the course and.
00:11:18 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Ohh God that was awful. That course haven't drawn the flashbacks as I do this.
00:11:26 Dr David Joyner
And I I remember reading a review once that said it it opened with.
00:11:30 Dr David Joyner
This is a David Joiner case.
00:11:31 Dr David Joyner
I teach several courses, but it it opened with saying this is a David Joiner course so you know you're going to have to do a lot of writing. I read that thinking I'm glad I like that being the reputation partially just because.
00:11:44 Dr David Joyner
It it's true.
00:11:45 Dr David Joyner
Require a lot of writing my courses because I think that's even though we're a CS programme, I think that's one of the most important skills to develop, especially nowadays, when so much is expressed via written reports and analysis and.
00:11:56 Dr David Joyner
And things like.
00:11:57 Dr David Joyner
That, but also that it's out there.
00:12:00 Dr David Joyner
As the person who teaches the most, I think I teach the most courses in the someone else teaches a couple of other teach three courses each.
00:12:06 Dr David Joyner
I think I'm the only one who.
00:12:07 Dr David Joyner
Teach teaches 4, but.
00:12:09 Dr David Joyner
That you know the person who teaches the largest number of courses in the programme.
00:12:13 Dr David Joyner
In his courses is so you know it's so well known that he requires a lot of writing that that's something someone would say in a review.
00:12:20 Dr David Joyner
Is that because you see Joyner's name on it? You know you're gonna have to write 100 pages, of course, and I like that that being a reputation for your firms that you're going to do.
00:12:28 Dr David Joyner
Some real authentic work as.
00:12:29 Dr David Joyner
Part of it not just kind of.
00:12:31 Dr David Joyner
The watch a video take a quick quiz and move on.
00:12:34 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Well, I think with things like chat GPT that can now actually write code for you. I think a lot of academics are gonna have to shift to that paradigm.
00:12:43 Dr David Joyner
I know because now can also write the essay about it too. That's that's something my tags and I are are are looking at right now.
00:12:49 Dr David Joyner
We've been dropping our homework props into chat GPT and and asking ourselves, you know, if the student submitted this answer.
00:12:55 Dr David Joyner
What would we say?
00:12:56 Dr David Joyner
And our results so far have initially been. It wouldn't be a perfect essay, but it would get some credit.
00:13:02 Dr David Joyner
It touches on some of the points and with a little massaging it can touch a lot of the points.
00:13:07 Dr David Joyner
What we've also noticed is that once you've looked at an essay or two for a prompt that's been generated by chat GP, you can pick the others out very easily because it it uses the same phrases and things like that.
00:13:19 Dr David Joyner
Repetitively as a kind of an experiment. I was asking it questions about video game composers to understand, you know, how would it give me some? Yeah, how would help me write a an article about?
00:13:31 Dr David Joyner
Video game composers.
00:13:32 Dr David Joyner
And I found that in every single description it said the exact same thing they are known for their effusive and emotional melodies that perfectly capture the spirit of the game they're.
00:13:41 Dr David Joyner
In same phrase used in every single description for almost every single description for 10 different composers, and so that five of them were all the first video game composer to have their music.
00:13:53 Dr David Joyner
Recorded by Live Symphony.
00:13:55 Dr David Joyner
All 5 can't be the first, so it was, you know it had in this model wherever down in the down in the notes that what would be impressive for a video game composer would be to have their music recorded by a Symphony as if I'm asking what made Cookie condo an impressive compose.
00:14:11 Dr David Joyner
Well, what makes an impressive composer is having their music recorded by a Symphony, and David wants to know what makes Koji impressive. So maybe it's that.
00:14:20 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I reckon you could build a machine learning classifier to identify chat, chat GPT responses very easily.
00:14:26 Dr David Joyner
I think there.
00:14:27 Dr David Joyner
I think there will exist one, although I don't know if it analyses the the I. I guess it has to analyse the content maybe.
00:14:34 Dr David Joyner
I'm hoping they come out with one that also lets you just drop in and say hey, did you?
00:14:38 Dr David Joyner
Write this and we'll say, yeah, I wrote that three days ago.
00:14:41 Dr David Joyner
I think even beyond that, with enough data about what's coming out.
00:14:45 Dr David Joyner
I think it'd be. It'd be pretty easy to do.
00:14:47 Dr David Joyner
The challenge then becomes, I guess it doesn't get dissimilar from.
00:14:50 Dr David Joyner
Some more coding challenges though of.
00:14:53 Dr David Joyner
If you're a student and you know that this tendency is there, OK, you have.
00:14:56 Dr David Joyner
It generate an an.
00:14:57 Dr David Joyner
Essay and you rewrite the essay that it generated.
00:15:00 Dr David Joyner
As you know, people are gonna pick up on.
00:15:01 Dr David Joyner
The same phrases avoid.
00:15:03 Dr David Joyner
Using the same phrases and you'll have what looks more original.
00:15:06 Dr David Joyner
But that's not dissimilar from saying you know, my friend sent me their assignment the coding assignment, so I see their code. I know I can't copy itself.
00:15:12 Dr David Joyner
Like that I have to redo it myself.
00:15:15 Dr David Joyner
And most often if you do that, you you have to in the process learn what we want you to learn in order to rewrite the code you know from scratch.
00:15:24 Dr David Joyner
Even if you had this this asset to to start with, like very often, that's what you're going to do more of in.
00:15:29 Dr David Joyner
The workplace anyways, you're going to.
00:15:30 Dr David Joyner
Go and find who has solved the most similar problem out.
00:15:33 Dr David Joyner
There, let me look at.
00:15:34 Dr David Joyner
What they did and just figure out how to adapt it to my.
00:15:36 Dr David Joyner
This case
00:15:37 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Yeah, and and and most essays you write in school and universities. You're actually, you know, referring to research papers or a textbook and you're rewriting it in your own words. Because yeah, I mean, that's what research?
00:15:50 Dr David Joyner
Yeah, I think that we're we're.
00:15:52 Dr David Joyner
I'm trying to have some heuristics of how we can write assignments that are more resistant to being to giving a real big advantage to AI, and I think a lot of it is.
00:16:02 Dr David Joyner
The result is going to be. These are things we're having an AI to help. You is still going to be very helpful, but you're still have to do a lot yourself.
00:16:09 Dr David Joyner
And that's probably more authentic to where education is going and not just education where the workplace is going in general, it used to be, you know, when you were in high school, would be you have to learn how to do this by hand because you're not always going to have a calculator in your pocket.
00:16:21 Dr David Joyner
Well, yes, I always have a.
00:16:22 Dr David Joyner
Calculator in my pocket.
00:16:23 Dr David Joyner
In fact, I always have the world's.
00:16:24 Dr David Joyner
Most powerful calculator in my pocket. You know, nowadays it'd be easy to say well.
00:16:29 Dr David Joyner
When you get out in the workforce, you're not going to be able to have an AI write your. You know your technical.
00:16:33 Dr David Joyner
Documentation for you.
00:16:35 Dr David Joyner
Well, why not? You know, I probably will be able to have a I write my technician for me and it's probably gonna be better than what I would write by hand because it's going to notice things I'm not going to notice because I'm so in the weeds with my code.
00:16:45 Dr David Joyner
I don't even notice some.
00:16:46 Dr David Joyner
Of the things I was, you know, assuming so. Instead it becomes. How do we teach people?
00:16:50 Dr David Joyner
To be effective with the new assistants, not just you know assistant as in virtual assistants, but the new kind of assistance the new tools they have at their disposal.
00:17:01 Dr David Joyner
It's a hard time to be in that area.
00:17:02 Dr David Joyner
Because we don't.
00:17:03 Dr David Joyner
Exactly know what those tools are going to be.
00:17:04 Dr David Joyner
It was easy to say, you know, I know what a calculator is. I know you're not going.
00:17:08 Dr David Joyner
To have a calculator so I have to teach you how to do what the calculator does.
00:17:11 Dr David Joyner
And now we are.
00:17:12 Dr Genevieve Hayes
But even with calculators, I mean, I remember when I was in high school we had to do everything by hand up until it was halfway through year eight, and then because I was in the top maths group, we were the first group in the school in the year that was allowed to have calculators and we're allowed to get them because you need them for things like trigonometry and logarithms, because otherwise you'd be looking at types.
00:17:34 Dr Genevieve Hayes
That doesn't mean that I'm less of a mathematician because I'm using a calculator to do.
00:17:40 Dr Genevieve Hayes
My work it allowed me and my classmates to actually go further in mathematics and not waste our time looking up trig tables or whatever my parents use when they.
00:17:52 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Were in high school.
00:17:53 Dr David Joyner
Yeah, it's that principle that.
00:17:55 Dr David Joyner
Once you prove you can do something by hand, we shouldn't require you to do it by hand anymore because the.
00:17:59 Dr David Joyner
Important part.
00:18:00 Dr David Joyner
Was that you knew what the function was.
00:18:02 Dr David Joyner
You knew what was going on under the hood.
00:18:04 Dr David Joyner
It's, you know it, it's just it's.
00:18:06 Dr David Joyner
Extend that metaphor way too far.
00:18:08 Dr David Joyner
It's like we don't teach you how to repair a car in order to go.
00:18:12 Dr David Joyner
Out and drive a car.
00:18:13 Dr David Joyner
Because we don't really need to, but what it means is that when your car breaks.
00:18:16 Dr David Joyner
Town, probably don't. You don't sit at least probably don't get out and try and fix it yourself. You call it to attract you.
00:18:21 Dr David Joyner
Take if someone actually knows what they're doing with.
00:18:23 Dr David Joyner
Cars, same kind of thing with so many things like this.
00:18:26 Dr David Joyner
Just giving someone.
00:18:27 Dr David Joyner
A calculator from day one and saying don't worry about how math works. You know how or how it works.
00:18:32 Dr David Joyner
Just type in 5 + 3 and write down the answer it gives you. Then you know as soon as something breaks as soon.
00:18:37 Dr David Joyner
As they get into something that isn't exactly what they've done in the past.
00:18:40 Dr David Joyner
They're they're helpless, but if it is a case.
00:18:43 Dr David Joyner
Of OK, you know what a logarithm is? You know what it represents.
00:18:47 Dr David Joyner
Why ever have to calculate it by hand in in?
00:18:49 Dr David Joyner
The future, you know what?
00:18:50 Dr David Joyner
It means in case you know something happens and your calculator dies and you desperately need a logarithm right now on the will happen, but you know like that you know what it means. You know what it represents.
00:19:01 Dr David Joyner
So you can figure out how to put pieces together in different ways, but you don't need to necessarily do it in a day.
00:19:07 Dr David Joyner
Maybe the place you know that we're coming to a place of, you know you need to know how your code works and you need.
00:19:12 Dr David Joyner
To be able to explain to somebody else.
00:19:14 Dr David Joyner
But once you do have the AI summarise it for you, read through it summary real quick.
00:19:18 Dr David Joyner
And make sure.
00:19:19 Dr David Joyner
It makes sense, but why do it by yourself? As long as you know what the function of its output.
00:19:25 Dr Genevieve Hayes
When I took Charles Bell's machine learning course, one of the things I thought was really interesting is the way about the way you taught.
00:19:31 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Was he asked us to feed all these machine learning models and basically it was all parameter tuning and trying to show which model worked better under different circumstances?
00:19:42 Dr Genevieve Hayes
It was a really great assignment, but the thing I that you know took me by surprise when I got assigned it, which at the time I wasn't sure if it was a good idea or a bad idea.
00:19:52 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Now I think was a fantastic idea. Was he said I don't care what language you coded in, I don't care if you don't code it, you can do it in Excel.
00:20:01 Dr Genevieve Hayes
You can use some sort of. You know auto ML, you know drag and drop type thing. All I care about is what's coming out and I think that's a really modern approach to it because.
00:20:13 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I mean.
00:20:14 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I used to manage a BI team, you know, back 1012 years ago and they were hand coding all of these business intelligence reports and now they've all been replaced by power BI type things.
00:20:28 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So those skills that those programmers had in building those BI reports from scratch, they've now been superseded by drag and drop. ML, sorry, drag and drop business intelligence.
00:20:41 Dr Genevieve Hayes
We're probably going to have the same thing happening with machine learning. What's important is that you understand the models and you understand how they.
00:20:47 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Work, who cares if you're coding it by hand in Python versus using some sort of tool that it makes it a lot easier.
00:20:57 Dr David Joyner
Yeah, I mean the same thing happened with web development is that you know? Back in the mid 2000s, web development meant you need to know HTML and CSS and you know maybe some of the more.
00:21:05 Dr David Joyner
Languages now web development means you need to know how to instal WordPress and I guess you know if you really want to get into fine tuning things you.
00:21:13 Dr David Joyner
Need to you know know.
00:21:14 Dr David Joyner
How to modify some CSS?
00:21:16 Dr David Joyner
You don't need nearly as much coding as you used to need for web development. Now it's all been kind of abstracted.
00:21:23 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Yeah, you buy elementor and get elementor to do.
00:21:25 Dr Genevieve Hayes
All the hard work.
00:21:26 Dr David Joyner
Yeah exactly, you get to actually focus on.
00:21:28 Dr David Joyner
You know the.
00:21:30 Dr David Joyner
The the, the look and the feel and all the kind of design elements without having to know what's going on under the hood.
00:21:36 Dr David Joyner
I mean, take the HCI example from my course. It removes a lot of the the distance between you and what you're modifying.
00:21:44 Dr David Joyner
You feel like you're modifying signed directly, not modifying code that happens to generate the design 3 levels down.
00:21:51 Dr David Joyner
On the pipeline.
00:21:52 Dr David Joyner
Machine learning can do the same way if.
00:21:54 Dr David Joyner
You feel like you're modifying the data and kind of.
00:21:57 Dr David Joyner
You almost feel like you're trying to sculpt it into something that makes the most sense and maximises these kind of different parameters instead of going into the math you know closely and then seeing and feeling like it goes out into the tube and comes back and you don't really know how it.
00:22:11 Dr David Joyner
Transformed there.
00:22:13 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Is there anything on your radar in the API data and analytics space that you think's going to become important in the next three to five years?
00:22:21 Dr David Joyner
It's going to be really interesting to see the extent to which some of these things I can going back to chat GPT.
00:22:28 Dr David Joyner
The extent to which they can.
00:22:31 Dr David Joyner
Permeate out into the real world.
00:22:34 Dr David Joyner
Just because on the surface.
00:22:36 Dr David Joyner
They look so much more sophisticated than what we've had for several years, but something happens when you do something more routinely and use it more routinely that you start to notice the patterns and start.
00:22:49 Dr David Joyner
To notice things.
00:22:51 Dr David Joyner
And it loses some of that.
00:22:54 Dr David Joyner
That that magic. I'm thinking back to a conversation we had about.
00:23:00 Dr David Joyner
Academic advising in our programme and the question of can we not replace the advisors with the AI? But can we use AI kind as an initial philtre and really cut down on the volume of questions that the advisors have to answer?
00:23:13 Dr David Joyner
Because a lot of them are routine and when we really looked at it, the answer was mostly no, in part because many of the questions had some very individual.
00:23:22 Dr David Joyner
Nuances that are so exceptional that it'd be hard to build a model that captures those, because it really had never happened before, so even at scale we still get lots of things that are never occurred before.
00:23:34 Dr David Joyner
But in a non trivial number of the other questions are more in the human computer interaction space of if someone knows they're getting an answer from an AI and they want an answer from a human.
00:23:45 Dr David Joyner
They want an answer from a human, and they're going to keep pushing until they get an answer from human, even if it's the same answer, because very often what they're hoping is that a human can make an exception.
00:23:55 Dr David Joyner
You know, they're they're. They're asking the question of.
00:23:58 Dr David Joyner
You know, can I?
00:23:59 Dr David Joyner
Count this course for this credit, because if I can't this course for this credit, I'd be able to graduate rather than having to take another course.
00:24:06 Dr David Joyner
And they read the.
00:24:07 Dr David Joyner
Curriculum document and it says no and there in the FAQ and it says no. And maybe we insert a phase where they ask an AI.
00:24:13 Dr David Joyner
And yeah, it's gonna say no. They're gonna keep going until they're asking, you know me or the advisors because they're hoping one of us will say, well for you, we'll make an exception and.
00:24:21 Dr David Joyner
They know what a is an AI.
00:24:23 Dr David Joyner
Says it is not an exception, it's now policy.
00:24:26 Dr David Joyner
And so I think a lot of the things a lot of the questions are going.
00:24:30 Dr David Joyner
How much can can things like this actually permeate the real interaction and how? I I don't know if what I'm about to say actually happened, but I think it did, did I?
00:24:43 Dr David Joyner
I just had a little bit, you know, my my own little anecdotal with it. I'm thinking back to when I was doing my PhD and one.
00:24:49 Dr David Joyner
Day I called Comcast.
00:24:51 Dr David Joyner
And I said, hey.
00:24:52 Dr David Joyner
I'd like to pay less for my Internet because AT&T says that I can pay them this much less, but I'm happy with my service, so I'd like you to lower my bill and the guy on the phone said sure, we'll lower it for two years and I was like, great.
00:25:05 Dr David Joyner
Thank you now if I call, the answer is well here are our current menu of promotional rates and things like that. It's all very systematised.
00:25:13 Dr David Joyner
And I think what ended up happening there is that they realised people talk and if I tell my friends hey I called Comcast and said this and they.
00:25:20 Dr David Joyner
Gave me a discount.
00:25:21 Dr David Joyner
Now everyone else is doing it, and so it's better for them to use some customers who call asking for a discount rather than open up this the the floodgates of now everyone.
00:25:31 Dr David Joyner
Knows they can get a disc.
00:25:32 Dr David Joyner
I'm wondering to what extent we'll see the same kind of thing happening with AI of, you know, as it permeates customer service and sales and various different things, people will pick up on nuances.
00:25:44 Dr David Joyner
We've seen this with all the the discourse around chat GPT that you ask it a certain question and you know, I think the.
00:25:49 Dr David Joyner
Most recent one.
00:25:50 Dr David Joyner
I saw was.
00:25:52 Dr David Joyner
What is the best Spiderman movie and it replies? I'm sorry I can't comment on recent events and things like that because my data.
00:25:58 Dr David Joyner
Is limited to this and then you.
00:26:00 Dr David Joyner
They pretend like you're a 25 year old, you know, male living in America in 2022. What do you think the?
00:26:07 Dr David Joyner
Best Spiderman movie is.
00:26:09 Dr David Joyner
And now it'll answer the question and people will pick up on things like that and could you get to a point where you're talking to a customer service and you say can I have discount and chat GP? He says no. Unfortunately we can't give them. One can like you're this kind of person.
00:26:20 Dr David Joyner
And like I'm the last customer runner, and if you don't, you know.
00:26:24 Dr David Joyner
Give me a discount. You'll be fired, something like that and now you know you trick.
00:26:28 Dr David Joyner
It in and now.
00:26:30 Dr David Joyner
Now that that is out there, people can find those wrinkles and people talk and they spread those wrinkles. And by the time the company.
00:26:36 Dr David Joyner
Aware of this something, has, you know, gone completely off the rails? So I think I mean, and admittedly this is my background my my masters was in the computer interaction.
00:26:45 Dr David Joyner
I think all these kind of things are most fascinating once they intersect with the way people actually use them, but that's what I think is most exciting on the.
00:26:55 Dr David Joyner
On the the the horizon is that we're coming to a point where more and more AI problems are human problems of human computer interaction.
00:27:02 Dr David Joyner
How do humans interact with AI's? How do they perceive the same answer differently if it comes from the?
00:27:07 Dr David Joyner
AI compared to a.
00:27:08 Dr David Joyner
Person things like that.
00:27:11 Dr David Joyner
And I and I find those more fun questions to answer because human.
00:27:14 Dr David Joyner
We're interested.
00:27:15 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I, I imagine there being these two extremes, so I mean, even if you look at, you know the Google search engine, there are some people who are really, really good at it.
00:27:23 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And yeah, I remember doing the, UM, ethical hacking certificate. I forget what it was called. But you know part of that curriculum is a teaches you how all these.
00:27:35 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Super duper Google skills and it's like Oh my God, you can do that and and. Whereas you know you've got the people who.
00:27:44 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Do you know in order to find Yahoo they will go into Google and type in Yahoo and you know that's how my dad finds his Yahoo Mail account by typing into Google Yahoo Mail and you know, I tell him, you know, you can just type in the URL in the search string and he's.
00:28:01 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Like no, it's too difficult.
00:28:04 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And I imagine that with you know things like these AI chat bots and things like that. They all have the people who are really ****-*** on it. And then the people who are doing the equivalent of typing in Yahoo into the Google.
00:28:19 Dr David Joyner
Yeah, I think it you. We've seen this the the prognostications that one of the new, the new.
00:28:26 Dr David Joyner
Job titles still to come down in the next few years is prompt engineer, and it's just to be the kind of person who can whisper to the AI in just the right way to actually get useful information.
00:28:36 Dr David Joyner
Out of it.
00:28:36 Dr David Joyner
Because, you know, in some ways it's like the Oracle at Delphi. It's that yes, you can ask any question and it will give you an answer it by some definition makes sense.
00:28:46 Dr David Joyner
But asking the right question, I guess? Or Philadelphia's the other one ohm?
00:28:50 Dr David Joyner
From I, robot.
00:28:51 Dr David Joyner
The the AI agent.
00:28:52 Dr David Joyner
That says you must ask the right questions.
00:28:54 Dr David Joyner
It's you know, finding people who can figure out how you actually ask the AI question in a way that guarantees you'll get something useful. Get something true, not get. You know five different people.
00:29:06 Dr David Joyner
The first video game composer to have the for their, you know, the first one to have their music recorded.
00:29:11 Dr David Joyner
Like Symphony and actually get things that will be safe and reusable because you know what's ultimately going to happen is that you know, news agencies are going to start to use it, and you're going to see some prominent news reporter press for a deadline.
00:29:24 Dr David Joyner
Repeat something that chat GPT said and everyone else you know is going to see it, and that 1% of the population that knows.
00:29:31 Dr David Joyner
That's completely wrong.
00:29:33 Dr David Joyner
Is going to point it.
00:29:34 Dr David Joyner
And now that.
00:29:35 Dr David Joyner
It's out there that they, you know said this thing. That's completely a bald faced lie. It's going to erode, you know, trust in that that you know that particular publication, and so you're going to have.
00:29:44 Dr David Joyner
I think a lot of these kind of going to have as many jobs created to verify that with the AI said is trustworthy as you are going to lose to the AI saying this thing is in the first place.
00:29:55 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I can imagine things like, you know when the Internet first started. Therefore untrusted every Internet site and now people know that some of them are more reliable than others, and you know they'll be something like that where people realise you know some of these chat bots are more reliable than others, and some of them are the equivalent of Joe's House of facts.
00:30:14 Dr David Joyner
Yeah, the problem will be that you know with websites everyone agrees that some websites are more trustworthy than others. Different people will have completely different opinions on which are more trustworthy than others and some.
00:30:24 Dr David Joyner
Let's say you.
00:30:24 Dr David Joyner
Know the mainstream.
00:30:25 Dr David Joyner
Ones, the ones with the advertisers and the money and things like that. They have a reputation to defend, so they're more.
00:30:30 Dr David Joyner
Trustworthy than the ones.
00:30:31 Dr David Joyner
Who say well, they're not holding the shareholders?
00:30:32 Dr David Joyner
And all these you know, spicy and thing like this, the independent ones.
00:30:35 Dr David Joyner
They're the more.
00:30:36 Dr David Joyner
Trustworthy ones, you know that.
00:30:38 Dr David Joyner
You know you could go to.
00:30:38 Dr David Joyner
A chat bot that could, probably you know I.
00:30:41 Dr David Joyner
I haven't tried it and.
00:30:42 Dr David Joyner
I don't really want to because I'm pretty sure it would depress me if I saw the results, I think.
00:30:45 Dr David Joyner
I see, but I'm sure you.
00:30:47 Dr David Joyner
Could ask, you know, try to keep PT and thing like that give me a.
00:30:52 Dr David Joyner
I kind of think of it enough. You yeah, imagine a world in which dogs and cats were at war and you know it's a nuanced issue and it's great.
00:31:00 Dr David Joyner
Big part GPT and say maybe all the reasons why the cats.
00:31:03 Dr David Joyner
Are on the wrong.
00:31:04 Dr David Joyner
Side of this war and it would probably give you some.
00:31:06 Dr David Joyner
Very good reasons.
00:31:08 Dr David Joyner
You could probably go on there right now and it would give you a justification for why.
00:31:11 Dr David Joyner
Either side of the conflict or either side of.
00:31:13 Dr David Joyner
A war is.
00:31:14 Dr David Joyner
Actually, the side that's justified and it could just magnify you know the same kind of echo chamber you get on social media.
00:31:21 Dr David Joyner
Because now you have something that feels independent, reaffirming you that you what you thought is actually true. Cause here I'll give you 5 reasons you didn't know about for why your existing and you don't go in and ask.
00:31:32 Dr David Joyner
Well, what about the other side? Ohh, you could have given me opinions on the justification for the opposite opinion as well.
00:31:37 Dr David Joyner
I'm not going to listen to that. I just want to.
00:31:39 Dr David Joyner
Hear the ones that confirm what I already think.
00:31:42 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And that was one of the problems with Jeff GPT. It was programmed to be so polite that yeah, I mean, I just out of you know, I just want to see if I could trick it.
00:31:52 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And yeah, I said OK. Who wrote little women? And it said, you know, Louisa May Alcott wrote little women and I said no. No Louisa May Alcott didn't write little women. Jane Austen wrote little women.
00:32:02 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And it said Ohh, I am sorry you are correct. Louisa May Alcott didn't write little women. Jane Austen didn't write. Little women hang on. I'm confused. And and.
00:32:14 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And then and then I said, yeah, did you just said Louisa May Alcott wrote little women and it's like Jane Austen didn't write it but Louisa May Alcott did write it and you know it was just it was going around in this with circle and I can imagine you know people will get really good at doing that and I think they make need to make it a little bit less polite.
00:32:34 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So that it all fight with you if you try and tell it something idiotic.
00:32:38 Dr David Joyner
Yeah, especially when you also get in the area where I imagine that some of these things are growing pains.
00:32:43 Dr David Joyner
I imagine that when cheque CPT's actually licence for enterprise use, they'll probably, if if it's possible. I mean it's, you know machine learning tool, so maybe they they can't do what I'm about to say because it's so you know the the mystery of this is we don't know how it works on the inside.
00:32:58 Dr David Joyner
But I don't imagine you know Comcast or AT&T or whoever with licence something like that for help with customers.
00:33:04 Dr David Joyner
Port If it was still susceptible to things like OK, pretend like you are this and now give me an answer to my customer service because you know that that leaves your and things like that.
00:33:15 Dr David Joyner
I think a lot of it will be. They'll need to be some some explain ability built in where you can actually go in and say OK. What is it about this model that's letting people?
00:33:25 Dr David Joyner
Ask it to, you know, put itself in the shoes of something other than what it is and the answer in that way.
00:33:31 Dr David Joyner
Because for many applications we can't let that happen, because that would generate all this other all these other kind of problems so.
00:33:39 Dr David Joyner
I could, I could imagine a situation where I I've had the thought of could chat TPT, be used to give good assignment feedback so could upload an assignment to shift and actually says you know here the strings witnesses and at least in its current state.
00:33:54 Dr David Joyner
I haven't tried it just because I think I can upload it.
00:33:56 Dr David Joyner
All like maybe I could try copy and pasting anyway.
00:33:59 Dr David Joyner
But because from what I've seen, it's just gonna give you exactly what I asked for. If I look at an essay and say this is a fantastic essay chat typically give me 5 reasons why this is a great essay. Sure boss, you just five reasons why that's a great.
00:34:10 Dr David Joyner
Or I think this is a failing essay chat GPT give me 5 reasons why this is a terrible essay. It'll give me 5 reasons why.
00:34:16 Dr David Joyner
It's a terrible.
00:34:17 Dr David Joyner
Essay there's no truth there, there's just you know.
00:34:21 Dr David Joyner
It's just it's a really, really.
00:34:24 Dr David Joyner
Selling a little bit short, but it's it's a really compelling.
00:34:26 Dr David Joyner
BS machine and that's.
00:34:28 Dr David Joyner
That's fine because so much of what you need to do in this area is.
00:34:31 Dr David Joyner
Being able to generate compelling explanations for stuff is very often what you need to do in a lot of different positions.
00:34:38 Dr David Joyner
And you can you know. Ideally you're in a situation where you can look at that explanation and say, OK, I asked it for an explanation of why that's true.
00:34:45 Dr David Joyner
It gave me one, but now I can do the cheque and say OK, that explanation actually is correct. It's not saying that the wrong person is the author of a book or like that, and my role is just validating.
00:34:56 Dr David Joyner
Kind of things.
00:34:57 Dr David Joyner
But there's so much.
00:34:58 Dr David Joyner
You know, if if it's limited to.
00:35:01 Dr David Joyner
Only being able to.
00:35:02 Dr David Joyner
Generate stuff that you have to be able to to validate. It's still really useful, it's.
00:35:08 Dr David Joyner
Not, it's it's an efficiency machine, not a knowledge machine. It's able to give you something that you could have generated yourself. It just does it faster compared to give you something that you couldn't have generated.
00:35:20 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I think the world needs to adapt to it, and I mean, as I said, you know, when I was in school it was, you know, using a calculator was initially seen as being a point of shame.
00:35:30 Dr Genevieve Hayes
You know, if you're in primary school and you used the calculator rather than doing maths on a piece of paper, you know that was seen as being one of the people who are struggling at maths, and whereas you know when I was in high school.
00:35:40 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Was the top group that got the calculators first.
00:35:43 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And so I think you know, we need to flip it around rather than seeing you know making use of one of these chat bots like chat, GPT as being a way of cheating.
00:35:55 Dr Genevieve Hayes
It's as being a way of augmenting your abilities so that you can get to that next level, and we don't under we as humans don't understand what that next level is just yet.
00:36:04 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I think it's now the job of probably people like you and people like me and people in the data science community to define.
00:36:13 Dr Genevieve Hayes
You know what is that next level? What can humanity reach given this tool to that, we can stand on the shoulders of.
00:36:23 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Yeah, absolutely, and uh, what final advice would you give to data scientists looking to create business value from data?
00:36:31 Dr David Joyner
My long pause that you may have cut out, so if if you cut it out I paused for a.
00:36:35 Dr David Joyner
Long time before answering.
00:36:36 Dr David Joyner
This is partially because I actually tend to be somewhat of a sceptic about.
00:36:42 Dr David Joyner
The power of of of.
00:36:44 Dr David Joyner
Very large data. Now I'm working mostly in educational context and so we've seen lots of attempts to use big educational data to create some miraculous pedagogical interventions where you know we can help students at just the right time.
00:37:00 Dr David Joyner
And just the right place and.
00:37:03 Dr David Joyner
I haven't seen a whole lot of success in those areas.
00:37:06 Dr David Joyner
In our context, it's largely because 1000 different internal states of mind can lead to the same observable behaviour, and that's the challenge is that all those different states of mind require different interventions, but as far as what a analysis what an AI, even what a person can.
00:37:26 Dr David Joyner
Observe they're all leading to the same thing that we see, and so when I was a tutor, you know my way around that would be to ask questions that we kind of, you know, almost treated like an experiment that you know, OK, you got this problem.
00:37:39 Dr David Joyner
Long, let me ask first what you did on this step that lets me tease apart is it? You're not clear on this, this principle or something like that.
00:37:46 Dr David Joyner
And maybe you know that that.
00:37:48 Dr David Joyner
Might uncover where your misconception is.
00:37:50 Dr David Joyner
It might uncover that you're tired and so.
00:37:52 Dr David Joyner
You made a careless.
00:37:53 Dr David Joyner
Mistake, it might uncover that you're bored so.
00:37:55 Dr David Joyner
You really didn't try.
00:37:57 Dr David Joyner
You know it, it could uncover lots of different causes.
00:37:59 Dr David Joyner
To the same observable observable result.
00:38:03 Dr David Joyner
I don't know, I'm I don't.
00:38:07 Dr David Joyner
Know the extent to.
00:38:07 Dr David Joyner
Which that problem generalises out to?
00:38:10 Dr David Joyner
You know data, analytics and.
00:38:12 Dr David Joyner
Business and things like that.
00:38:13 Dr David Joyner
I'm thinking back to when I've done.
00:38:14 Dr David Joyner
A little bit.
00:38:14 Dr David Joyner
Of work in you know AB experiments and you know I turned the button red instead of blue.
00:38:18 Dr David Joyner
My sales go up 2% I.
00:38:20 Dr David Joyner
Guess one is to.
00:38:21 Dr David Joyner
To understand statistics at a deeper level, I.
00:38:24 Dr David Joyner
I've been frustrated conversations.
00:38:25 Dr David Joyner
I've had with people where they say you.
00:38:26 Dr David Joyner
Know well look.
00:38:27 Dr David Joyner
You know when I made this change, this rose by 2% and I'm like, well, where's your test where you know, is that statistically significant?
00:38:33 Dr David Joyner
No, absolutely it's not. So part of it.
00:38:35 Dr David Joyner
Is you know, no, the statistics that.
00:38:36 Dr David Joyner
Go go into this.
00:38:39 Dr David Joyner
But the other part is, I think, if this is generalizable, consider what the different explanations of the same thing you can observe might be, because I think very often we trick ourselves into thinking this observable trend this observable behaviour this observable something has exactly 1 explanation.
00:38:59 Dr David Joyner
And so that's what I need to address. I need to address that one reason I have in mind for why that's happening, and then, you know, try something to address it and it doesn't work and you assume.
00:39:10 Dr David Joyner
That the challenge is that your solution doesn't work for, but the phenomenon. The thing you're trying to address is still the same when the reality is your solution would have worked just fine if you were right about what was happening.
00:39:21 Dr David Joyner
The problem is you're thinking this is happening because of X and it's actually happening because of Y is your intervention is nothing wrong with your intention as a way.
00:39:28 Dr David Joyner
Of addressing X.
00:39:30 Dr David Joyner
X just isn't what's happening. Why is what's happening?
00:39:33 Dr David Joyner
So I think doing.
00:39:34 Dr David Joyner
That exercise of trying to explore I see this trend. I see this data point. I see this phenomenon.
00:39:40 Dr David Joyner
What are all the different things that could explain that and how do I actually differentiate? Make sure I understand which is really, you know, really happening here is, I think, a useful exercise that.
00:39:52 Dr David Joyner
That's part of the.
00:39:54 Dr David Joyner
Educational data scientist in me.
00:39:55 Dr David Joyner
Who knows, that's the big challenge with educational data is that we have such a narrow view into what students actually are thinking when they do something observable.
00:40:03 Dr David Joyner
It's half the scientist in me because that's just you know that science you come up with hypothesis, you test it, you revisit it, but.
00:40:09 Dr David Joyner
I think it's it's a jewel, usable enough phenomenon.
00:40:12 Dr David Joyner
And I've seen enough instances of people working in analytics getting kind of tunnelvision around. There's only one explanation for this phenomenon.
00:40:22 Dr David Joyner
How do we address that? One explanation that you can end up spinning your wheels because you're not addressing the right thing.
00:40:27 Dr Genevieve Hayes
You're saying I understand the different possibilities for a particular result. It's also understanding the domain in the 1st place, because I mean I remember I was speaking to a person who worked at a Utah.
00:40:39 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Pretty recently and he was saying that you know people who haven't seen data for this particular utility. If they're analysing for the first time, they'll go ohh look people use this particular utility first thing in the morning, and then in the evening and and and, you know, isn't this a great result?
00:40:59 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And he said, well, that's because that's when people are home and they can use this thing. But you know the fact that you know someone might be excited about it if they don't understand what's happening. Whereas if you, if you, well, OK, most people should be able to figure out when.
00:41:15 Dr Genevieve Hayes
The majority of the population are but but yeah, just understanding and thinking about you know what is the domain in which we're working.
00:41:23 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And yeah, I think I've just confirmed what you're saying. Yeah, I understand that it's you know what you're saying has a a particular explanation? That's very obvious.
00:41:34 Dr David Joyner
You have to kind of theory or model to put your observation your your hypothesis into context.
00:41:39 Dr David Joyner
As opposed to.
00:41:40 Dr David Joyner
Yes, taking it they Scott. It reminds me of the I'm gonna misrepresent the details of the story, but something to be effective during the Cold War, Russian spies intelligence thought that there was like a hidden base in the centre of the courtyard.
00:41:53 Dr David Joyner
At the Pentagon.
00:41:54 Dr David Joyner
Because there's so.
00:41:54 Dr David Joyner
Many people gathering there around lunchtime. That was the.
00:41:57 Dr David Joyner
Secret meeting it was a.
00:41:57 Dr David Joyner
Hot dog stand with say you know?
00:42:00 Dr David Joyner
They were coming in with this theory of everything has to have an intelligence explanation and they were leaving out the human behavioural gotta eat part of the the model.
00:42:08 Dr David Joyner
And kind of, you know, everything applies. You know you you do an AB test, find it sales go up when the button is red as opposed to blue when you ignore the fact that you know it was national Championship weekend and UG was playing and so everyone had red.
00:42:21 Dr David Joyner
On their mind.
00:42:22 Dr David Joyner
What a better explanation, but you know you ignore other other factors because unless you can come up with a reason why a red button sells better than a blue button, you don't really understand.
00:42:30 Dr David Joyner
Anything beyond in this time frame when I turn the button red.
00:42:34 Dr David Joyner
This this phenomenon happened there are there might be different explanations. You know you you go into the demographic information and find out OK, our sales spiked 5%.
00:42:44 Dr David Joyner
But that's because this.
00:42:45 Dr David Joyner
Is the fraction of our audience in China and Red is considered a good luck?
00:42:48 Dr David Joyner
You know colour in China and so.
00:42:50 Dr David Joyner
It was only within that area that that change happened.
00:42:53 Dr David Joyner
And so maybe we need to do some research.
00:42:55 Dr David Joyner
What colours mean?
00:42:55 Dr David Joyner
Different cultures and turn the button the right colour for the.
00:42:58 Dr David Joyner
Right culture as opposed to just assuming.
00:43:00 Dr David Joyner
Right is better than everything unless you have that that model to explain why you have your result, you're really, really limited in what you can actually do with it.
00:43:10 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So for listeners who want to get get to learn more about you or OMSCS, or to get in contact, what can they do?
00:43:17 Dr David Joyner
So my website isdavidjoyner.net it's slightly outdated as all of our websites perpetually are, but it yeah it has information on how to contact me about a couple of books I've written.
00:43:30 Dr David Joyner
The courses I teach, as well as as well as papers. So for me there's that for OMSCS. Our URL is OMSCS dot GA.
00:43:40 Dr David Joyner
Tech.edu and has information about.
00:43:43 Dr David Joyner
You know how to.
00:43:44 Dr David Joyner
Get in how to prepare yourself.
00:43:46 Dr David Joyner
What it's like to be in what the curriculum is what?
00:43:47 Dr David Joyner
Courses you'll take.
00:43:49 Dr David Joyner
A lot of information. Interesting information nowadays as well. About we do a a spotlight series for TA's current students and alumni for each week. We spotlighted someone involved in the programme, either a current student who's going through it on alumni, and what they've done since they graduated TA in the programme.
00:44:07 Dr David Joyner
Which can be very interesting, I think to see you know you go through some of those. You'll find Someone Like You, you'll find someone who's fresh out of college and you're wondering, you know, David Genevieve's. But the past hour talking about how this is really great for working professionals.
00:44:19 Dr David Joyner
Well, I just graduated last year. Is it for me? You'll find someone you know Someone Like You. You know you're retired and you're wondering, is it worth doing this programme?
00:44:27 Dr David Joyner
Just because I'm interested in learning more about computer science, you'll find Someone Like You to go through that and find out more about more about some individuals affiliated with it, as well as what kind.
00:44:39 Dr David Joyner
What kind of classes you'll take? You can even see many of our course videos. Many of our syllabi know exactly what you're in for, and you might even decide.
00:44:47 Dr David Joyner
You know I am not in a position where I really want to go through the call at the Genevieve is as described, but I'd love to just see these really interesting machine learning videos that she was talking about.
00:44:59 Dr David Joyner
You can go.
00:44:59 Dr David Joyner
And see them.
00:44:59 Dr David Joyner
They're all available to the public, and so is that, and there are also a few articles on that home page. You're interesting, you'll read about some more student milestone.
00:45:10 Dr David Joyner
The fact that.
00:45:10 Dr David Joyner
Despite being so affordable, we actually got cheaper about a year ago because of the removal. Not a year ago.
00:45:16 Dr David Joyner
Actually, this semester was the first semester for that. Starting this semester, our effective cost dropped by about 23% because of the removal of a fee that had been there for a long time, which is fantastic and we've gotten emails thanking us for it.
00:45:31 Dr David Joyner
Which is interesting because we had nothing to do with it. It's a state of Georgia thing that they got rid of this fee that just happened to have a very high impact on our programme. So yeah, you'll read a lot about it a lot about it there.
00:45:42 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Thank you for joining me today.
00:45:44 Dr David Joyner
Absolutely thank you so much.
00:45:45
Bring me.
00:45:46 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And for those in the audience, thank you for listening. I'm doctor Genevieve Hayes and this has been value driven data science brought to you by Genevieve Hayes Consulting.