DeepShit just arrived
Is UMass Boston ready?
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is packed with references that grow increasingly obscure the farther we travel from the 70s. For example, who even remembers that the supercomputer Deep Thought subtly nodded to Deep Throat, the (ahem) "cultural phenomenon" of the time?
Fast forward to January 2025, when DeepSeek, a Chinese AI just as powerful as ours but 1,000 times cheaper, landed with a thud. Its arrival rhymed uncomfortably with the DeepShit our science and math education has been in since at least the bloody Math Wars. Marc Andreessen immediately dubbed it our “Sputnik Moment.”
Let’s see if our very own illustrious university is ready to rise to the occasion.
Ha! Quite the opposite!
UMB’s math placement system remains as broken as ever. Even the passionate motions from the Faculty Council feel like screaming into the void.
The long presumed dead Restorative Justice Commission, whose job is to blame the “system” when our students fail, has risen from the underworld; a university-wide email from it (the commission, not the underworld) of January 31, 2025 informs us about its miraculous resurrection.
The UMB Grand Scholarly Challenges (GSC) are going strong. For years, our Supreme Leaders have been (verbally) assuring us that we we’re out of our minds if we claim that the “challenges” are anything more than just “vague inconsequential strategic guidelines.” when we noticed that topics like quantum computing, AI and other hard sciences were utterly absent among the GSC. But the gaslighting campaign is torn to shreds: in November, 2024, we were informed that almost a million dollars ($800K) were allocated by the Leaders to various GSC-inspired projects that have nothing to do with AI or national security. On February 3, 2025, we learned about the winners: “inclusive,” “indigenous,” and “disparate” are in; AI and quantum ciphers are out.
Did we miss anything? Let us consult the Little Red Book. Or should we say 毛主席语录?
Managed decline