AI and E. coli, side by side — what a ride!

The Finnish media Helsingin Sanomat (HS) reported this morning that artificial intelligence, or language models, reflect the values of their developers. The article was based on the same questions that HS has asked candidates from different political parties in connection with elections. This made it possible to compare the language models with the parties and their values.

Most language models lean toward value liberalism and the left – among Finnish political parties, the closest equivalents are mainly the Social Democratic Party (SDP), the Greens, and the Swedish People’s Party (RKP). The Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset), by contrast, is the furthest away.

When reading this news story, it is worth remembering that people probably do not ask language models very much about values, but rather about various facts. As far as those are concerned, current language models are, at least in my own experience, quite reliable.

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Yesterday, I also happened to read a scientific paper about a completely new kind of AI-based approach in which Paul Ahavi and his colleagues used E. coli bacteria as a living information processor by analyzing their natural growth responses in plasma samples from COVID-19 patients. This was done without genetic modification or specialized equipment.

In practice, the researchers classified early-stage plasma samples from COVID-19 patients according to how severe the disease subsequently became. The classification was based solely on bacterial growth data and was analyzed using machine learning, or artificial intelligence.

The study showed that AI could analyze the effects of metabolites in patients’ plasma on the growth of E. coli and link those effects to the subsequent progression of the disease. In other words, by analyzing bacterial growth, it was able to distinguish a disease that would develop into a mild case from one that would become severe – essentially determining who would recover from the infection on their own and who would require treatment.

Based on their results the researchers concluded that “these findings position biological reservoir computing as a robust, scalable, and low-cost platform for intelligent biosensing, diagnostics, and hybrid bio-digital computation, while providing new mechanistic insights into the computational capabilities of living systems.”

The ability of the combination of E. coli and AI to predict the progression of COVID-19 was roughly as accurate as what can be achieved with precise – and extremely expensive – biochemical measurements. This means that the combination would seemingly offer a vastly cheaper way of analyzing large numbers of patients in connection with a wide variety of epidemics – and potentially even in developing countries.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Rain Scald: The Future of a New Sexually Transmitted Disease
Gender Reassignment May Not Help—and Could Even Worsen Mental Health
AI Drones: Ukraine’s New Edge in the War?

Some University of Helsinki Employees Demand End to Collaboration With Israeli Universities

Some University of Helsinki employees have, quite evidently, lost their minds. I arrived at this conclusion because over 700 of its employees are demanding that Finland’s largest university end its cooperation with Israeli universities.

Behind the petition is an organization called Researchers for Palestine, which I had never heard of before. They describe themselves as "a group of staff and researchers based at the University of Helsinki who are committed to pushing for an academic boycott of Israeli educational institutions, in line with BDS and PACBI guidelines."

Among the signatories, there appear to be mainly ethnically Finnish representatives of the social sciences, but with a quick glance I also found, for example, two people named Muhammad, a few named Ahmed or Ahmad, and several variations of Hassan, as well as some non-Finnish European names.

In fact, 700 is not a particularly large number, considering that the University of Helsinki employs approximately 7,800 people. So, less than 10 percent of the staff have signed the petition—unfortunately, I personally know a few of them.

Naturally, such a petition has no actual impact on inter-university relations, nor should it. If for no other reason, then because research is inherently something that connects people rather than separates them—and it is such a long-term endeavor that temporary political disagreements should not be allowed to influence it.

Nevertheless, I offer a suggestion to all the petition’s signatories: “No force in the world can stop you from ending your own cooperation with Israeli universities and researchers. Therefore, you are entirely free to set an example for others and return any funding you may have received for such cooperation.”

However, if you don’t personally have any such cooperation, then I view your demand as rather ridiculous. It seems to be a clear case of virtue signaling on matters that require no personal sacrifice from you, but would demand that others break their commitments. That is simply spineless.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
University of Helsinki gained an anti-Semitic reputation
Demonstrations cause trouble in Helsinki and Sweden
International Master´s degree is an opportunity to be used

"Woke" pushes American science academies to favor women in their membership selections

Recently in Finland, there has been a lot of discussion about racism, but the media has not forgotten about feminism either. The latter also concerns education, where attention has been given to, among other things, the low percentage of women in the highest level of education in the field of technology. This is despite the fact that their proportion among all university students is clearly greater than that of men.

One ongoing topic in this discussion has been the gender distribution of university professors, which still leans towards men. However, it is likely just a matter of time before the gender distribution of students also becomes evident in the composition among our country's professors.

In this sense, it was interesting to note that the membership of the American science academies, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS), has undergone significant changes. Over the past two decades, many women have joined this group of top researchers, which was previously almost exclusively composed of men. In recent years, women have made up about 40% of the new members in both academies.

In a recently published study, the merits of researchers in psychology, mathematics, and economics were compared to each other, and the change in the likelihood of women being elected to NAS and AAAS membership from the 1960s to the present day was analyzed.

According to the collected data, in the early years of the study period, women had fewer opportunities to be selected as members compared to men with similar qualifications. However, by the 1990s, the selection process in both academies had become roughly gender-neutral based on publications and citations.

Nevertheless, the development didn't stop at a gender-neutral situation, as might have been assumed. Over the past two decades, a trend of favoring women has emerged and strengthened in all three fields. Currently, women are three to fifteen times more likely than men with equivalent publication and citation records to be elected as members of AAAS and NAS.

In other words, the recognition and status of female researchers have fundamentally changed, at least in the USA, leading to men becoming a discriminated gender in science, with their merits receiving less recognition compared to women, at least within the scientific community's own structures.

The authors of the study in question speculated that this might be due to the fear that women would receive less recognition for their work and thus find it more difficult to get their publications into top-tier scientific journals. To compensate for this, science academies would engage in positive discrimination towards them.

In other words, this would reflect the influence of the prevailing "woke" culture in the USA, with the fear of increasingly strong societal pressures manifesting in the selection of academy members. Consequently, this would have led to significant discrimination against men.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Discrimination against women?
A young woman skiing in a swimsuit caused a controversy among women
China is betting on scientific excellence