The morning was spent with various NYU luminaries preparing for a proposal (or really a design process leading up to a proposal) to the Moore and Sloan Foundations relating to "data science". The most interesting aspects of the question are that no two people agree on what data science is, and even for any component of data science, no two people agree on what the big issues are that need addressing. So that is the beginning of an interesting set of conversations.
At lunch, Foreman-Mackey and I met up with Schiminovich to discuss a proposal that Schiminovich wants to put in to NASA about autonomous platforms that will make space missions and suborbital projects cheaper, faster, and easier to deploy. The idea is for the platform to be able to make scientific decisions and re-scopes in real time, in reaction to changing conditions. Could be fun! Of course I argued that we should take an economic model, with utilities specified in dollars. And I need more projects to be doing, because I just don't have enough irons in the fire! (Note ironic tone.)
"The idea is for the platform to be able to make scientific decisions and re-scopes in real time, in reaction to changing conditions. Could be fun! Of course I argued that we should take an economic model, with utilities specified in dollars."
ReplyDeleteYou should check out Kevin Knuth (SUNY Albany)'s work on robots that do science. He's a MaxEnt regular too.