It's pretty thoughtful about diagnosing the problems of the current system, but I don't know about the solutions. Disbursing money to researchers directly (or via industry) seems captive to the same incentives as disbursing money via universities.
I'm with you on this. It's irrational to destroy an institution or project like USAID that leads to millions of unnecessary, preventable deaths and cannot be reconstituted. These aren't pieces of software nor lend themselves to movie plot/amateur/macho man quick-fixes. Organizations are best modeled as living organisms that require careful assessments and stakeholder buy-in for positive change.
You may think your cynicism displays wisdom, but it actually just reveals your own passivity and subservience to those who would dominate and rob you of your future.
I've noticed this sort of ideology taking over social media, probably because it selects for firing off vapid dunks over sincere engagement with the complexities of the world. I fear it's destroying our ability to think for ourselves, here to the benefit of the ruling class for whom science holds inconvenient truths.
Why aren't you? If you believe that the people "running the show" are the most corrupt of all time (I think that's a stretch, though they're certainly the most corrupt in my lifetime), then it seems like you should be quite critical of a person describing it as "business as usual."
I'd tend to agree. And we should encourage other fellow non-super-rich people to join our cause rather than casting out those who disagree or we do our common enemies' work of becoming divided-and-conquered.
The above, I meant it as increase in degrees towards these objectives explicitly rather than presuming the existing system were perfect or neutral. IIRC, institutional affiliation lends a degree of credibility but grant writing effectiveness and form filling ability are prerequisites to increasing the probability of winning grant awards. I don't know how a large disbursement organization could improve on fairness in selection without requiring documentation and convincing proposals in a format convenient for efficient, fair review. Weakening this process would encourage an appearance of arbitrariness and favoritism, if not actually. I don't believe for a second that DOGE or similar non-expert "experts" can "improve" anything they touch when meaningful improvement requires domain expertise, careful assessment, and usually stakeholder buy-in. At a high level, it appears the current US regime is incrementally remolding and reverting its society, industry, academia, and institutions from more egalitarian-based to more feudal/prerogative-based.
Maybe I read it wrong but it seems the case being made is to overhaul the current NSF...with a different NSF? Like I'm failing to see what specifically the current government is doing to hamper AI progress that there should be a "focus on harnessing AI and out-competing China", and what harnessing AI actually means.
It means funneling public funds to AI and AI-adjacent companies that grease the wheels enough with the administration. It's like everything else: the administration decides it can control funds however it wants, regardless of what was legislated, and leverages those funds for quid pro quo transactions.
Say what you will about how to improve academics and scientific research, but the current administration's modus operandi is not the way.
I've received some individual grants from private foundations in another country. Those grants were essentially unconditional gifts, as there were some tax benefits with such grants. I could have spent the funding period surfing in Bali instead of doing research, and nobody would have had the standing to complain.
Things change if the funder wants to maintain control over how the money is spent. Once there are regulations and compliance requirements, things become risky for the individual. If you end up in a situation, where a reasonable person would employ a lawyer or another professional, it's safer to have a legal entity between you and the funder.
Some of this overhead is nonsense. A lot of it is training and fellowships. Some of it exists because the government has strong regulations to prevent self-dealing and fraud. I certainly think some of those regulations could be relaxed, but I’m not sure this administration would produce better ones.
If your research requires access to heavy duty machinery then it makes sense to partner with an institution already in possession of the goods. Be that university, national lab, or as a sole practitioner. Of course there’s some premium overhead built in to the rate. Hardware and institutional backing ain’t cheap.
I'd argue we have over-corrected on that stuff. Go back and look how processes worked in the 1950s and 1960s. People used to write relatively short proposals to do quite massive works. It's the meme: "You can just do stuff!"
I'd argue that this is one of the advantages of Anglo and Anglo-American culture that has become eroded over time. I've been reading about the British East India Company and how much discretion employees were afforded in carrying out their work: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/04/east-india-com.... They had like 35 employees in London and managed to take over Mughal India, which was a gunpowder empire with guns, cannons, 4-5x the state revenues and 25x the population of Britain. Pound for pound it's probably one of the most effective organizations in history.
Effective at what though? The article is not exactly painting a rosy picture of EIC, nor should it. More of an advertisement for laws and regulations that curtail such abuses and an educated populace that can see such a threat to their liberty.
> Effective at what though? The article is not exactly painting a rosy picture of EIC, nor should it.
The EIC overthrew a gunpowder empire with vast resources and one of the largest militaries in the world with 1,000 European soldiers and a few dozen administrators in London. There's incredible lessons in there, orthogonal to whatever you're talking about.
Worlds apart these two men Vannevar Bush and Michael Kratsios. My how far we've fallen.
"Bush joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1919, and founded the company that became Raytheon in 1922. Bush became vice president of MIT and dean of the MIT School of Engineering in 1932, and president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1938"
"Kratsios graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor's degree in political science in 2008. After graduating from Princeton, he worked as an analyst at Barclays Capital and the Lyford Group International. Kratsios served as the chief financial officer of Peter Thiel's Clarium Capital. He later became a principal at Thiel Capital and served as Thiel's chief of staff. "
> Kratsios graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor's degree in political science in 2008. After graduating from Princeton, he worked as an analyst at Barclays. . .
Okay, in all seriousness, what would a person with this background know about the natural sciences? He's had no professional or academic exposure to them. It's a bit weird that a complete non-scientist can loftily decree, with a perfectly straight face, precisely how science ought to be "overhauled". (By funneling money to AI companies and "competing with China," no less.)
There's a definite feeling that things are coming to a head on this one; it feels unsustainable in a way it hasn't before. People tire of the society-wide rot brought on by boundless greed whose benefits ordinary people will never reap, and whose consequences they will bear alone.
In the Trump administration, any traditional qualifications for a job are disqualifiers. All that matters is willing to do what you're told and never question anything, publically or in private.
What does RFK Jr. know about medicine? Why do we have news anchors in cabinet positions? Same answer.
As a rule, people should be judged on content of their character. Their words and the actions behind them.
That said, it's a really safe bet that anybody serving in the current administration is the wrong person for the job and their only "qualifications" for that role are pledging personal loyalty to Trump (the man, not the office), and that they are a skilled grifter and manipulator.
Not to get all philosophical, but what does "content of character" mean apart from actions and words? If anything I'd say content of character is something we must infer from actions and words (and yes, actions are far more important than words, though in a public-facing position, communication arguably becomes a form of action).
The term 'overhauling' is typically used as a weapon in framing battles. It is usually employed by an emerging faction, or a group dissatisfied with the existing establishment, to frame their opponents as evil. The logic is truly absurd.
They argue that investments have surged while results have diminished. This is a given. Just like a gold mine, gold is easily extracted at first, but the deeper you dig, the more expensive extraction becomes.
The article dismisses things like "spending half their time on paperwork" as mere bureaucracy, but these are necessary procedures to ensure the transparent execution of public funds. Shifting power and capital from universities to private AI companies effectively dismantles this public oversight.
Transitioning to a "new initiative" is simply a move to siphon academic power and prestige toward their own agenda. In reality, the exodus of scientists to the private AI industry leaves immense room for scientific neutrality to be compromised. Of course, it is undeniable that inefficiencies and flawed practices do exist in certain areas of academia. Furthermore, once researchers enter the corporate world, they are bound by NDAs. The trajectory of science then becomes subordinated to the creation of short-term market value, rather than the pursuit of truth or long-term value generation.
History has clearly shown the consequences of eating your seed corn just because you are hungry. I do not understand why they are proceeding this way.
I'm really sympathetic to PP's POV thus I'd really like to deconstruct the possible fallacies in it. Your q seems to suggest that setups like Bell Labs (but not to forget ARPA) were probably on the Pareto front of how to organize science. Not sure if the WH isn't just being reactionary or moving back towards that Pareto frontier..
Yes, it's an interesting question of whether/how Bell Labs/ARPA were "eating their own seed corn" by using "market-based mechanisms" _internally_ to allocate their assets.
It's probably a question that [a libertarian rag like] the Economist would be exploring too, if they felt the urge to work hard..
> The focus should be on harnessing AI and out-competing China
Lol. Braindead take. First of all, who cares if we invent next-big-technology before china? We’ll get them to make it for us and then they’ll be better at it than us because they make it and we don’t.
> writes Michael Kratsios, the White House science chief
Ah, yes. That makes the braindeadness of the take make sense. This is just more anti-science bullshit from a gov that hates science. Once you get past the talk, it’ll boil down to “we should only give NSF funding to companies that kick back enough cash to the trump 2028 campaign fund”
Letting China or other foreign nations invent the next great technologies and then buying it from them sounds to me an lot like outsourcing R&D. The US already outsourced much of its manufacturing, if we outsource the R&D as well what jobs will remain in the US? Surely we cannot become a nation of middle managers.
I mean as long as you don’t care about the future of your friends, family, or country, and the collective struggle
for knowledge that scientists have dedicated their entire lives to, then sure — why get so fired up about stuff like that anyway?
The Trump administration began its engagement with the scientific community by attempting to nuke dozens of university programs from orbit, declaring them ideological enemies and illegally cancelling all of their grants. Do you expect everyone to just pretend that didn't happen? I agree with a lot of what Kratsios has to say in principle, but if you want the research community to engage with or respect him, at an absolute minimum you're going to have to convince him to apologize.
You’ve let your worldview get so small your counterpart is convinced Biden funded the Covid pandemic to steal the 2020 election. He’s got all the proof, as I’m sure you do too. Take a breather for a few months.
For the record, the conspiracy is Obama and Trump funded the COVID-19 pandemic via EcoHealth Alliance (and Trump funded the vaccines in late 2019, before COVID was public) in direct circumvention of the Obama era prohibition on dangerous gain-of-function.
I think we need to keep our conspiracy allegations accurate:
We’re not doing anything constructive to strawman one group was a way to insult another.
Other kings said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So, I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp, but the fourth one... stayed up!
Painting with such a broad brush is useless. Science continues to work.
Some of the institutions have serious flaws, but going back to leaches and bloodletting is only going to get all of your money taken by the tech companies who know that randomized trials, A/B testing, and staggered rollouts are science too. (/joking)
It's pretty thoughtful about diagnosing the problems of the current system, but I don't know about the solutions. Disbursing money to researchers directly (or via industry) seems captive to the same incentives as disbursing money via universities.
- Give money to quacks and less credible individuals
- Permit ideological discrimination of awards
- Eliminate oversight and increase corruption
- Funnel money into dubious things
The current system is far better at resisting these things than the proposed alternative would be.
The above, I meant it as increase in degrees towards these objectives explicitly rather than presuming the existing system were perfect or neutral. IIRC, institutional affiliation lends a degree of credibility but grant writing effectiveness and form filling ability are prerequisites to increasing the probability of winning grant awards. I don't know how a large disbursement organization could improve on fairness in selection without requiring documentation and convincing proposals in a format convenient for efficient, fair review. Weakening this process would encourage an appearance of arbitrariness and favoritism, if not actually. I don't believe for a second that DOGE or similar non-expert "experts" can "improve" anything they touch when meaningful improvement requires domain expertise, careful assessment, and usually stakeholder buy-in. At a high level, it appears the current US regime is incrementally remolding and reverting its society, industry, academia, and institutions from more egalitarian-based to more feudal/prerogative-based.
Maybe I read it wrong but it seems the case being made is to overhaul the current NSF...with a different NSF? Like I'm failing to see what specifically the current government is doing to hamper AI progress that there should be a "focus on harnessing AI and out-competing China", and what harnessing AI actually means.
Say what you will about how to improve academics and scientific research, but the current administration's modus operandi is not the way.
See previous requirements for ideological statements to receive funding.
I've received some individual grants from private foundations in another country. Those grants were essentially unconditional gifts, as there were some tax benefits with such grants. I could have spent the funding period surfing in Bali instead of doing research, and nobody would have had the standing to complain.
Things change if the funder wants to maintain control over how the money is spent. Once there are regulations and compliance requirements, things become risky for the individual. If you end up in a situation, where a reasonable person would employ a lawyer or another professional, it's safer to have a legal entity between you and the funder.
I'd argue that this is one of the advantages of Anglo and Anglo-American culture that has become eroded over time. I've been reading about the British East India Company and how much discretion employees were afforded in carrying out their work: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/04/east-india-com.... They had like 35 employees in London and managed to take over Mughal India, which was a gunpowder empire with guns, cannons, 4-5x the state revenues and 25x the population of Britain. Pound for pound it's probably one of the most effective organizations in history.
The EIC overthrew a gunpowder empire with vast resources and one of the largest militaries in the world with 1,000 European soldiers and a few dozen administrators in London. There's incredible lessons in there, orthogonal to whatever you're talking about.
"Bush joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1919, and founded the company that became Raytheon in 1922. Bush became vice president of MIT and dean of the MIT School of Engineering in 1932, and president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1938"
"Kratsios graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor's degree in political science in 2008. After graduating from Princeton, he worked as an analyst at Barclays Capital and the Lyford Group International. Kratsios served as the chief financial officer of Peter Thiel's Clarium Capital. He later became a principal at Thiel Capital and served as Thiel's chief of staff. "
Okay, in all seriousness, what would a person with this background know about the natural sciences? He's had no professional or academic exposure to them. It's a bit weird that a complete non-scientist can loftily decree, with a perfectly straight face, precisely how science ought to be "overhauled". (By funneling money to AI companies and "competing with China," no less.)
I don’t think it has worked well, but this is continuing the trend rather than a deviation.
What does RFK Jr. know about medicine? Why do we have news anchors in cabinet positions? Same answer.
That said, it's a really safe bet that anybody serving in the current administration is the wrong person for the job and their only "qualifications" for that role are pledging personal loyalty to Trump (the man, not the office), and that they are a skilled grifter and manipulator.
Interesting question.
I think the intent when talking about “character” is to look for traits that unifiy observations of words and actions.
They argue that investments have surged while results have diminished. This is a given. Just like a gold mine, gold is easily extracted at first, but the deeper you dig, the more expensive extraction becomes.
The article dismisses things like "spending half their time on paperwork" as mere bureaucracy, but these are necessary procedures to ensure the transparent execution of public funds. Shifting power and capital from universities to private AI companies effectively dismantles this public oversight.
Transitioning to a "new initiative" is simply a move to siphon academic power and prestige toward their own agenda. In reality, the exodus of scientists to the private AI industry leaves immense room for scientific neutrality to be compromised. Of course, it is undeniable that inefficiencies and flawed practices do exist in certain areas of academia. Furthermore, once researchers enter the corporate world, they are bound by NDAs. The trajectory of science then becomes subordinated to the creation of short-term market value, rather than the pursuit of truth or long-term value generation.
History has clearly shown the consequences of eating your seed corn just because you are hungry. I do not understand why they are proceeding this way.
I'm really sympathetic to PP's POV thus I'd really like to deconstruct the possible fallacies in it. Your q seems to suggest that setups like Bell Labs (but not to forget ARPA) were probably on the Pareto front of how to organize science. Not sure if the WH isn't just being reactionary or moving back towards that Pareto frontier..
Yes, it's an interesting question of whether/how Bell Labs/ARPA were "eating their own seed corn" by using "market-based mechanisms" _internally_ to allocate their assets.
It's probably a question that [a libertarian rag like] the Economist would be exploring too, if they felt the urge to work hard..
Lol. Braindead take. First of all, who cares if we invent next-big-technology before china? We’ll get them to make it for us and then they’ll be better at it than us because they make it and we don’t.
> writes Michael Kratsios, the White House science chief
Ah, yes. That makes the braindeadness of the take make sense. This is just more anti-science bullshit from a gov that hates science. Once you get past the talk, it’ll boil down to “we should only give NSF funding to companies that kick back enough cash to the trump 2028 campaign fund”
I think we need to keep our conspiracy allegations accurate:
We’re not doing anything constructive to strawman one group was a way to insult another.
lol. For example?
Some of the institutions have serious flaws, but going back to leaches and bloodletting is only going to get all of your money taken by the tech companies who know that randomized trials, A/B testing, and staggered rollouts are science too. (/joking)