Category: thoughts

Inteligência Artificial

Botando uns pingos nuns is…
(English version below)

O que acham que é?

ChatGPT e afins.

O que é?

Um campo de estudo sobre métodos para fazer com que o computador tome decisões “espertas” com mínima ou nenhuma intervenção humana.

O chatGPT é uma ferramenta que foi construída com um desses métodos. Por ela ser fácil de acessar e usar, e pela qualidade das respostas, é uma ferramenta que se popularizou muito. Mas ela é uma de muitas outras ferramentas usando um de muitos outros métodos da área de inteligência artificial.

O chatGPT é inteligente mesmo?

Não. O chatGPT é um jogo de probabilidades. Vou tentar explicar com uma analogia.

Imagina que você memorizou todas as obras da grécia antiga, em grego, sem saber falar grego. Ou seja, você sabe todos os símbolos, em todos os documentos, e a ordem que eles aparecem, mas não faz a menor idéia do que eles significam.

Aí alguém escreve pra você uma pergunta em grego antigo. Você vê aqueles símbolos e, sem saber o que significa, vai procurar em todos os outros símbolos que você memorizou se tem alguma coisa parecida. Aí você acha umas coisas similares e começa a construir uma reposta. Primeiro escolhe uma palavra que geralmente segue aquela pergunta, ou perguntas muito parecidas (porque têm muitos símbolos em comum). Daí você dá uma pesquisada no que geralmente segue aquela palavra, e escolhe a segunda aleatoriamente dentre os candidatos mais prováveis, e assim por diante.

É uma idéia simples, implementada muito complexamente com várias transformações de símbolos pra números (porque é mais fácil pro computador trabalhar com números), e que funciona incrivelmente bem. Mas que, na minha opinião, diz mais sobre a nossa regularidade e padrões existentes em tudo que a gente produz do que sobre um computador sendo mesmo inteligente.

É perigoso?

A tecnologia por ela mesma, não. A tecnologia na nossa mão descuidada, provavelmente sim. Mas essa é a história da humanidade. As tecnologias surgem, todo mundo fica empolgado e espreme tudo que pode delas até as coisas começarem a dar errado, e aí a gente pensa como consertar. Foi assim com a agricultura, com os carros, com a internet (que ainda não foi consertada, mas já deu ruim), e vai ser assim com a inteligência artificial. Tem potencial pra dar certo, e potencial pra dar errado, mas não temos o tempo (ou talvez a calma) pra refletir antes da coisa se popularizar e ser usada pra diversas tarefas, boas e más.

Artificial Intelligence

Crossing some t’s and dotting some i’s…
(Versão em português acima)

What do people think it is?

ChatGPT and family.

What is it?

It is a field of study about methods for computers to make “smart” decisions more or less autonomously.

ChatGPT is a tool built using one of those methods. As it is easy to access and use, and for the quality of answers, it has become widely popular. But it is one of many tools based on one of many methods from artificial intelligence.

Is chatGPT really intelligent?

No. ChatGPT is a probability game. I will try to explain using an analogy.

Imagine that you have memorized all the works from ancient Greece, in Greek, without knowing Greek. That is, you know all the symbols, in all documents, and the order in which they appear, but you have absolutely no idea what they mean.

Then someone sends you a question written in ancient Greek. You see those symbols and, without knowing their meaning, look for similar sequences of symbols among the ones that you have memorized. You find some similar stuff and start building an answer. First you choose a word that typically follows the question symbols or sequences like it. Then you search what usually follows that word, and choose a second one randomly among the more likely candidates, and so on and so forth.

It is a simple idea, implemented in a very obscure way with many transformations from symbols to numbers (because it is easier for computers to work with numbers), and that works amazingly well. However, in my opinion, this says more about our regularity and patterns existing in everything we have produced, than about a computer being actually intelligent.

Is it dangerous?

The technology in itself, no. The technology in our careless hands, probably yes. But this is the history of mankind. Technologies arise, everyone gets excited about it and use it to its limit until things start to go wrong, and then we think how to fix it. It was like this with agriculture, cars, internet (which we did not fix yet, but it already went wrong), and it will be like this with artificial intelligence. It has the potential of being a good or a bad thing, but we do not have the time (or perhaps the patience) to reflect before it becomes too popular and used for all sorts of things, good and bad.

P.S.: AI likes my post about AI 😂

Sobre debates produtivos

Nessa época de eleições, ocorrem debates entre candidatos na TV. Na sua maior parte, esses eventos acabam sendo uma oportunidade para a troca de insultos e propaganda grátis, e raramente representam um debate de fato. Debates, na verdade, fazem parte dos primórdios da lógica, e, logicamente, o objetivo nunca foi insultar o adversário ou enaltecer o aliado. Em um debate existem sim dois (ou mais) lados: o proponente e o oponente, em termos técnicos. O papel do proponente é propôr uma idéia, e o papel do oponente é desafiar essa idéia.

Pode parecer uma atividade combativa, mas não é. No final das contas, o objetivo é entender se a idéia é válida, ou em que condições ela seria válida. E isso só se descobre colocando essa idéia em cheque de todos os modos possíveis. O objetivo é aumentar o entendimento de todos sobre aquela idéia, e não “vencer” (seja lá o que isso significa) ou “convencer o outro”.

Na prática, debates (produtivos) entre dois lados aparentemente contraditórios servem para:

  1. Cada lado entender um pouco mais das motivações do outro, e
  2. fortalecer ou refinar os argumentos que a gente tem sobre algum assunto (ou seja, aprender).

Quando um lado faz pergunta pro outro o objetivo não é desafiar ou discordar, mas entender (ponto 1). E quando a gente tem que explicar nossas convicções pra outras pessoas, temos que pensar porque temos essas convicções e em que elas são baseadas (ponto 2). Ou seja, um debate produtivo contribui para o aumento do entendimento global. Infelizmente, as pessoas costumam reagir muito mal a qualquer questionamento que pareça desafiar suas afirmações ou exija um pouco de reflexão. E acabamos assim, com “debates” onde cada um fala pra si próprio, e ninguém realmente aprende.

Eu senti necessidade de esclarecer isso depois de muitas e muitas tentativas frustradas da minha parte de discutir política com algumas pessoas. Eu já discuti muito política na vida. Sinceramente, no início eu não sabia de muita coisa (eu continuo não sabendo, mas a curva é monotonicamente crescente). Mas a gente ouve as outras pessoas, faz perguntas, desafia suposições, pesquisa na internet… E nesse caminho eu aprendi muito. Lembro de discussões muito interessantes e produtivas sobre inflação, cotas nas universidades, voto obrigatório, aprovação de leis, corrupção (e as motivações e implicações sociais), índices econômicos, PIB… enfim. Uma variedade de assuntos! E um tanto de gente bem intencionada me ensinou muito sobre essas coisas durante discussões. Seja sobre partes técnicas do assunto que eu de fato ignorava, seja sobre consequências ou causas que eu não tinha considerado, ou sobre outras opções que eu nem sabia que existia. E talvez elas também aprenderam um pouco no processo, nem que seja como explicar as coisas que elas sabem de modos diferentes. E nem sempre a gente concordava no início, e nem sempre concordava no final. Mas isso não importava.

Infelizmente a coisa ficou feia de uns anos pra cá, e ninguém mais parece ter saco pra isso. Eu tentei, com a melhor das intenções possíveis, pedir uma elaboração de argumentos, perguntar, ou apresentar contra-exemplos a várias pessoas que me apresentaram idéias das quais eu discordo. E é muito, mas muito frustrante mesmo, quando alguém vira e fala “mas é minha opinião e eu não vou mudar e você não vai mudar então essa discussão é inútil”. Quer me matar de raiva é terminar um assunto assim. Cá estou eu, tentando entender o que pra mim parece incompreensível, e ninguém disposto a explicar a não ser com argumentos vazios e sem fundamentos. E que, ao invés de refletir sobre ou fortalecer seus argumentos quando eu faço perguntas, fecha a cara e vai embora. Isso pra mim não é opinião, é teimosia e preguiça de aprender. E se não quer aprender sobre um assunto ou fundamentar suas opiniões devidamente, não me venha apresentar ele como se fosse “a sua verdade”. Conhecimento não é fé.

10 years away from Brazil / 10 anos fora do Brasil

Portuguese version below.

I realized today that it has been 10 years since I moved away from Brazil. March 2011 was when I moved to Vienna, Austria, to pursue a PhD degree. At the time, 10 years sounded like an eternity. Now that they have passed, it doesn’t feel that much. I was reflecting today about an interesting phenomenon that unfolded slowly, and I think it conveys a good picture of the country I once called home.

The first few times I visited Brazil after moving, I was usually asked “so when are you coming back?”. Everyone assumed I was away to study, and that I would go back as soon as I graduated. After a couple of years, I started being told by several people “you know, perhaps it is better you stay abroad a little longer”. Everyone was a bit more pessimistic, talking about how bad the country was. When I got a job at CMU, a lot of people asked if I could use this a chance to stay in the US for good. This year, with the pandemic, I am considering whether to visit Brazil in June/July (I am fully vaccinated). When mentioning that, I got “don’t come, things are a mess here”. 😢

Hoje eu percebi que fazem 10 anos desde que eu me mudei do Brasil. Em março de 2011 eu fui fazer meu doutorado em Viena, na Áustria. Na época, 10 anos parecia uma eternidade. Agora que eles já se passaram, não parece muito. Eu estava refletindo hoje sobre um fenômeno interessante que foi acontecendo aos poucos, e que, na minha opinião, reflete bem o país que um dia foi minha casa.

As primeiras vezes que eu visitei o Brasil depois de ter me mudado, a pergunta que eu mais ouvia era: “quando você volta?”. Todo mundo assumia naturalmente que eu só ia terminar meu doutorado e voltar. Depois de uns dois anos, antes de eu terminar o doutorado, o discurso mudou pra “talvez seja melhor que você fiquei aí mais um tempo”. Eu lembro que ainda estava em Vienna quando todo mundo começou a ficar mais pessimista, falando só dos problemas do Brasil. Quando eu consegui o emprego na universidade americana onde eu trabalho, muitas pessoas me perguntaram se tinha possibilidade de eu me mudar pros Estados Unidos de vez. Esse ano, com a pandemia, eu estou cogitando visitar o Brasil em Junho ou Julho (já tenho as duas doses da vacina, e há dois anos que não vejo minha família). Quando eu falei isso, a resposta foi “não vem, está um caos isso aqui”. 😢

Food, shelter, and companionship

I remember December 2018. I was at my parents house and we had a small gathering with my uncle’s family and grandmother to celebrate the end of the year. My uncle came to me and mentioned about 2018 being over and I remember replying tearfully something to the effect “Finally… this was such a hard year I just want it to be over”.

2018 was a hard year. A hard year so far… then came 2020.

In a strange way, 2020 was not harder than 2018 for me, personally. It was probably harder for people on average, and this comforts me a bit since, this time, I am not struggling alone. I see more people burnt out, just trying to get by, tired of online meetings, and tired of being stuck at home. More and more I hear that we need to be easy on each other, that we can’t possibly do everything we were doing before. We did save time on commuting, but now the house needs to be in order if it is appearing in a meeting, or we need to manage schedules so that the whole family is not speaking on meetings in the same room at the same time, or we need to make sure the kids are doing their homework, and the pets are not going to jump on camera, we need to make meals at home, we need to wash everything after coming back from the supermarket. All these things take more time and energy, and time and energy were already scarce resources before…

The same way this crazy year has exacerbated some of our social problems, it has also done so with our personal problems and the way we have been managing our personal lives. We are encouraged (to put it lightly) to strive for excellence. To be ambitious, to embrace opportunities, to accumulate roles. To “be creative” and recreate the same work environment at home. To be a good professional, partner, parent, sibling, friend, daughter/son, all at the same time. We were already working on our limits, when something unpredictable happened and everything goes up in the air. We struggle to find the time to even think about how to manage the emergency. We take it one day at a time, fighting small fires, without being able to stop and analyze the big picture, how we could be spending our time better, and what are our actual priorities. We end up spending time and energy to try and fit all we did before in this “new mode”, without ever considering whether we should be doing these things at all.

The best lesson we could learn from 2020 is to put things into perspective, and be better at figuring out what *really* matters. The more we do this exercise, the more we realize that very *few* things matter, and the rest is bonus:

My experience in a male dominated discipline

I was asked to participate on a panel at the university about diversity, and my task was to talk about “my experience in a male dominated discipline”. I kept thinking about this for the last couple of days, and I am always unsure on how to approach this topic. On the one hand, I have never felt I was at a disadvantage in my career due to my gender. On the other hand, I know of many women who do struggle in their workplace because of their gender. But I was asked to talk about *my* experience, so here we go.

Throughout my career I have met wonderful people (men and women) whom I get along with and who never made me feel for a second that I was “different”. So many names just pop up in my head and I feel incredibly fortunate for that. Most of the times our commonalities are much greater than our differences, and I like that none of these people seem to care that I am of a different gender, or that I look differently. I was very lucky to have been able to choose who I work with most of the time (academia perk?), and looking back I have surrounded myself with colleagues and friends that made working a pleasant experience. I do not remember many instances where I needed to “put up with someone” for too long. Perhaps a consequence of that is that I hadn’t really paid so much attention to the whole gender biased business until much later in life.

As I became more aware of gender differences, I started noticing certain things here and there, and listening to other people’s experiences. Today, my opinion is that the core of the problem is beyond gender, and probably much more related to personality. We live in a society that values the outspoken, the ambitious, the confident one. We are easily impressed and convinced by those that speak their messages loud and clear, even if they are not sure of what they are talking about. And we feel that cautious and nuanced messages are from insecure and unsure people. We are drawn to certainty, even when it is not certain at all. That leaves the introspective and careful people at a disadvantage. (Ironically, the more nuanced messages are usually the more well-thought ones). The fact that women are generally raised to be more agreeable, and less combative, is incidental, and makes the problem worse for us, typically but not exclusively. However, being a cautious person in an overly confident world is tough for any gender.

So I feel like my struggles have been caused more because I am cautious and I don’t like to rush into things, than for being a woman. The way I found around this is to move closer to people that appreciate this trait, and move away from those that feel this is a weakness. I know I am lucky to be able to make this choice, and I know many that are not.

About choices and tech

Do you waste hours scrolling through infinite feeds on your favourite app? Did you check your e-mail for the 100th time today? Did you stop an important task you were doing because your phone vibrated? Did you stop paying attention to someone you were talking too because of a pop-up notification on your desktop? If any (or all) of those seem familiar, I suggest you watch the documentary The Social Dilemma (see trailer) on Netflix. I think this hits the nail on the head when it comes to problems exacerbated by new technology which I was trying to talk about in a previous post.

I really like the way the problem is framed, and I feel somewhat relieved that my resistance to social networks might not be an indication of a character flaw. It also puts in check a general belief that we are in control of our thoughts and choices, something I have questioned over and over again. We are highly suggestible (maybe gullible?) animals and new technology just found out a way to make specific targeted suggestions with microscopic precision. New apps change our habits, the way we think, the way we work, the way we relate to each others, and we don’t even realize it. Maybe you are happy with this situation, maybe you think there is no harm done, since you are getting access to content that you would never be able to see otherwise. But we are really biased for judging what is good for us… For example, we all know that eating too much fat or sugar is bad for our health, but we can’t resist that desert every now and then. If we were less aware of our health, we might think that sweets are good for us because they just taste so good… so what’s the harm? The same thing happens with all this new technology, except we are in uncharted territory, in all senses, and it is not really clear what is and isn’t healthy. So we must treat this with care, and we must be extra judicious when spending time online. Where are we spending time? Is this time well spent? Is there a competition for our attention that prevents us from focusing on one thing? Are we happier with ourselves after unplugging from the online world?

I am definitely not happy. We need to admit that choices are made *for us* and that we are not so much in control. We need to recognize that first, and try to fight it. But we should not fight this alone. It is unrealistic to believe everyone will suddenly have the will power to control how much time they spend online, and how. Like many other aspects of life, we need policies to protect us from ourselves. Like having salads before deserts in buffets, calorie counts on labels, sugar-free options… We need sugar-free internet. This will only happen with a big shift in how the industry operates. And this can be triggered by social demand.

It is not like I believe the big internet giants are evil. This story has happened several times before: we do first, and think second, when we realize the mistakes, we adapt. I hope we are realizing our mistakes, and I really hope we adapt before it is too late.

What happened?

Six months since I last wrote here, and the world is now upside down. It is not like it was not already messed up before, but this is a whole new level of mess… There are so many things going on, and so many things crossing my mind, that I find it hard to make sense and organize it all. So forgive me if this text is all over the place.

A bit of context if you are reading this too far in the future. The world is now 5 or 6 months in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. This is a highly contagious virus that causes a respiratory disease named COVID-19. For more on the topic, you can google it. There is, of course, a wikipedia page about it. The story told in the future about this depends on how we deal with it now. Only you, future person, can know what came out of it, but I must say that, for some of us people of the present, things are not looking good.

I started checking the news again since I am working from home and things are calmer on my side. Big mistake. It feels surreal. I end up asking myself “whaaat??!!” way too often. Here are a few recent headlines, just FYI:

In hindsight, we can hardly blame the virus alone for this chaos. We have put ourselves in this situation, it was a long time coming, and the health crisis is only making our problems more evident.

What happened to knowledge?

For starters, there was a *lot* of skepticism about the seriousness of this illness. In spite of all the warnings of the WHO, scientists, and epidemiologists, decision makers were still dismissive, thinking the studies were alarmists, and these scientists were an “opposition” of sorts. Maybe because mortality rate is not at 50%, and people are not visually sick, it was easy to look to the other side. Then, when things started to look bad, many decision makers put their faith in untested drugs, irresponsibly advertising them and encouraging distribution in hospitals. Even with no evidence that it would work, and a lot of evidence that it had serious side effects.

In my opinion, this is a result of two things: (1) a general distrust in science (e.g. climate change deniers, anti-vaccine movement, flat-earthers); and (2) an enhanced sense of entitlement for an opinion on each and every subject. Obviously these two things are not completely independent, but I think it is interesting to understand how this has come about, and ways to alleviate it. It seems people are unable to critically analyse information, and discern trustworthy sources. I don’t blame them. We can find literally everything on the internet nowadays disguised as reliable information. In a world where everything is true, each person picks their own truth. But you see, science doesn’t really work like that.

what happened to social security?

This reluctance to accept the studies was not a mere opposition to science. There is a very real and practical reason behind it: the economy. You see, all the studies indicated that, in order to curb the spread of the disease and prevent the collapse of health care systems, we needed to reduce gatherings, be more isolated and avoid contact with others. Now, people won’t stay at home because we politely ask them… Governments needed to take action. First thing to close are schools, then shops, then public spaces, and so on. Or at least that was the recommendation. The thing is, some people can move their business to home office, but a big number of people cannot. And with people at home, they don’t buy, they don’t travel, they don’t spend. And that means a lot of business lose income, which means they cannot pay their employees, which results in bankruptcy and unemployment. No government wants to deal with this problem, this is all very familiar, so why would they force business to close and the economy to slow down?

When have our lives become so dependent on an economy running and business working properly? Are we willing to continue this way? I mean, it is quite fragile as we can see now. Peoples’ subsistence depend on them having a job, but not all people have jobs all the time. So what happens when they don’t? That is what a social security system is for. We can compare the social impact of this pandemic in countries with high and low social security to see what a difference this makes. Of course this is hard given all the other factors, but it might be educational in any case. What cannot happen is for decision makers to look away so much because supporting the citizens in a time of need is just not possible (or not a problem they want to handle).

what will happen to us?

A(n optimistic) part of me wants this to be a lesson, that we look at it critically, find our weak points as a society, and fix them for the next emergency (let’s face it, another one is bound to happen sooner or later). The two topics above are simply things that worry me more, but I am sure there are all sorts of other problems that have become really obvious (like international collaborations, access to health care, inequality, to mention a few). A (realistic) part of me is hopeless that this will happen, specially when I see people so eager for things to “get back to normal”. Once again, we fall prey to our urgency and move forward in leaps and bounds (or as we say in Portuguese, aos trancos e barrancos).

About mankind

Lately I have been feeling more and more grim about life in general. I think this is a culmination of facts: things I learned, things that happened, things I noticed. It has reached a point where I have very little faith in mankind, and I think that if any stupid leader decides to detonate a nuclear bomb and kill us all, the universe will end up a better place.

This might have started with me learning more about global warming and our environmental footprint. We produce *a lot* of garbage, that needs to go somewhere. It typically ends up in the oceans or landfills around the world, contaminating animals, water, plants, and, eventually, us again (but we kind of caused it, so we deserve). Even with recycling, most of the world’s garbage still ends up in one of those places. And recycling is treating the symptom, not the cause. In practice, we can produce less than half of the garbage we produce if we are just conscious about it. It does not hurt to use our own bags for shopping, use both sides of paper sheets, get a glass water bottle instead of buying the plastic ones, close the tap when washing the teeth or the hands, use less disposable items… among other things.

Then I learned about animal cruelty, which involves killing animals for food, but also for fashion items (of quite questionable taste, really). Turns out that farming for animal production is also a big factor on global warming, and turns out we don’t really need all that meat. Nutritionally speaking, we would still be ok if we ate half of the meat we eat on average. With all these different options of food around, it wouldn’t hurt to go vegetarian three times a week. Concerning fashion items, I don’t see the appeal on leather and furs, so regarding such things as luxury items is complete nonsense as it is. Put on top animal killings, it is an easy “no, thank you”. Animals are also used for testing cosmetics, so reducing the amount of those is not only healthier (for the body *and* mind), but better for the animals.

The fashion industry alone has many other problems. Many brands have sweat shops in less developed countries, where they can get things done cheaper, and don’t need to respond about labor abuse. This practice takes advantage of people that desperately need a job, and are willing to work crazy hours for little pay. Companies need profit and this is achieved in two ways: decreasing the cost for producing clothes and increasing the consumption. On this second front, they bombard us with advertisement every week, creating “trends” to be followed, forcing people to recycle their wardrobe every season unnecessarily and to have a million pieces of clothes. We simply need to realize how manipulated we are being, and start to care less about how we look, and care more about what we do.

By the way, the thing with the profit, exploitation and fake trends is not an exclusivity of fashion, but of many other industries as well. We are manipulated every day by advertisements promising more productive, beautiful, modern, meaningful lives, only so that we will buy the latest release, generate more trash, more environmental impact, and more profit. And we are not happier.

As time passed I became more and more aware of life’s randomness, and how not realizing this can lead to social injustice. If we think that all our success is attributed to our hard work (the myth of meritocracy), then we are willing to bet that anyone could have done what we did. The thing is that, not everyone is at the same starting point. Life is unfair and people are born in all kinds of situations. This can be alleviated by some policies that give the less privileged some benefits.

All of these things alone are not really distressing for me. They are problems, and I like to solve problems. I enjoy thinking about each and every one of them, learning their effects and, mostly, their causes. Many times the underlying cause is rooted on greed, on the need to have profit, and on assigning importance to unimportant measures. Many of the effects have to do with increasing the social gap and manipulation. I think that, if we put our heads together, we could take steps in the direction of improving the situation.

The distressing part, the really really distressing part, is to see how little people seem to care. They care a lot about themselves, the “market”, the “economy”. As long as money is moving, as long as they have the best deal, as long as they can satisfy their immediate needs, who cares about something that happens thousands of kilometers  or years away? Out of sight, out of mind. And so we walk towards the abyss.

 

Some sources:

  1. https://theintercept.com/2018/08/03/climate-change-new-york-times- magazine/
  2. https://truecostmovie.com/
  3. http://www.nationearth.com/
  4. https://www.beforetheflood.com/
  5. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8457074/?ref_=ttep_ep7
  6. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8457106/?ref_=ttep_ep19

About the first women in logic workshop

About a month ago I attended the first Women in Logic workshop. I presented the partial results of a paper with Bruno Woltzenlogel Paleo on translations of resolution to sequent calculus proofs. The workshop was open to everyone, but every submission must have been co-authored and presented by a woman. In the end, the audience was composed of mostly women, with one man attending all talks (kudos Francesco!) and another showing up for one of the invited talks. As you may imagine, I’ve had long discussions with different people about this kind of event, before and after. I had my reservations as well. Is closing up in an almost-exclusive event the right thing to do for inclusiveness? What about other minorities? What exactly are we trying to accomplish? If there is a lack of women in logic, what is the root of the problem? I thought it would be worth attending anyway, not only because it was in Iceland, but to see for myself what it would be like. When the program was out, I must say I was a bit disappointed, as there was no space for the discussion of what I thought were the important questions, but only scientific talks. And those were quite diverse (you may imagine the broad range of topics when the only restrictions were logic and co-authored by a woman).

Finally the day came, and as the hours went by and presentations were given, something interesting happened. These women were comfortable. Most of the time, I could not see the usual stiffness, result of nervousness and stage fright, so commonly witnessed during presentations by both men and women in big conferences. The speakers were calm, talking in a usual speed and stopping to explain things on the board or on the slides. They looked confident. The feeling was not that of an aggressive audience, but of a supportive one. So, what changed?

In my view, it was not the fact that there were mostly women in the room. More than that, it was the mindset of the speakers themselves. Somehow they go in front of this audience thinking it will be ok, and then it is ok. Why do they think it will be ok? Maybe because these are other fellow women that get as nervous as they get when presenting to an audience of old white men. Maybe because they can finally relate to the audience. Maybe because they think that women will be less critical and nicer with the questions. Whatever reason you choose, regardless if it is true or not, if it makes you feel more at ease, it works. In the end, it is impossible to predict if the audience will be “nice”, or if you will get mean questions or harsh criticisms (ok, it might become a bit easier to predict once you get to know the people 😉 ). All you can do is think of an “it will be ok” reason to calm you nerves. Here are some suggestions that work with most audiences:

It will be ok…

  1. … it is not my PhD defense.
  2. … half of the people will not pay attention anyway.
  3. … more than half of the people are not experts in this area and I probably know more than them.
  4. … it is only 30 minutes of my life.
  5. … I can always reply honestly that I don’t know.

The usefulness of a workshop such as the women in logic one, in my opinion, is to show women that they can do this. They can go there and present and take the questions and criticisms. It is a bit more scary than presenting to the walls of your bedroom, and a little less scary than presenting at a big conference. The crucial thing is to take the next step, and get out of the women-only shell. The last thing we want is to create a clique inside this already small community of logicians in computer science.

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As an after-note, lack of security is hardly a women exclusive issue. This makes me think that a larger part of the academic community could benefit from this kind of friendly low-profile workshop.

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As an after-after-note, the lack of security and self-confidence is, in my opinion, the main reason why women sometimes do not pursue the careers they want. I have heard more women than men saying “I don’t think I am good enough for this”, and I say it myself sometimes. This is hard to overcome. It is good to remember that there will be people believing in you even when you don’t. Also, don’t try to do everything alone. Hardly everybody does. Ask for help. Ask for people to proof read your first papers, to listen to and give advice on practice talks, to discuss ideas for your projects… you will see how much people are willing to help, and how much you can learn from it.

About the world

When I was finishing my masters and deciding where to go for a PhD, I did what every student in my position would do: ask around for advice. I talked to some of my professors that did do a PhD to find out about their experiences, where they went and so on. Being a theory oriented person, I could see more attractive opportunities in Europe other than the US, and the programs looked very different (from the duration, style, tuition, etc.). When confronted with these options, I got almost unanimously the same argument:

The quality of education in the US will be better, it is a longer phd but you will leave with more opportunities and more knowledge. It will be expensive, there will be sleepless nights, you’ll have no vacations for a long time and will kill yourself to work, but it is worth it. In Europe things are much more relaxed and you will do a lot of tourism. Sure you’ll end with a PhD, but much less worthy.

I found that somehow strange… This was not too great of a case for the US, nevertheless they wanted me to go and sacrifice some years of my life for a title. Suffice to say that I did not apply for any positions in the US… In the end, I got a position in Vienna, Austria, and that’s where I went to.

Looking back, having finished a PhD in Europe and understanding better how the American programs work, I sort of see their point. I am sure you see it as well, so I will not go over that. My intention here is to say what they have not told me (maybe because most or all of them had got a PhD from an American university). Given the choice, I would *never* exchange the years I spent in Vienna and Paris for a PhD from an ivy-league school in the US. Here’s why.

I moved to Vienna alone. It was the first time I was living outside my parents’ house and I started big: other side of the world in a country whose language I did not speak. I not only had to learn how to manage my own life, but how to manage my life in a society completely different from the one I was used to. And do a PhD on my spare time. In trying to adapt, I started looking at life differently. Suddenly answers like “that’s the way things are” or “it’s just how it works” stopped making sense because here I was at a place where things were not like that and, guess what? Everything still works! (Even better sometimes…) The opportunity to travel a lot (Europe is really very small… and a bunch of different countries are just a 3-hour flight away) has contributed to that feeling. Everywhere there was something curious, something different, a new unsaid rule that everyone followed. And as we try to fit in, we test different behaviors on ourselves, and realize that many “defaults” we have can be changed to something that works better, or to something that is more “you”. It is interesting the moment you feel more at home at a place that is completely different from the one where you were born, simply because that is more in line with your values. I feel like those years were a deconstruction and reconstruction of myself, and I feel much more comfortable in my skin today than I did 6 years ago. Hopefully this will only get better with time 🙂

Sure I did learn a lot scientifically as well, and I did get a PhD, and a job. My professors might think that I got lucky. (I think so too). But even if I hadn’t got a position, and was unemployed in Vienna today, still I would not change a thing. I am a resourceful person and I could get a job eventually, even outside academia. What I have learned and how much I have grown during this experience is beyond any career-oriented measurement of success.

You might argue that the same would happen if I had moved to the US, but I don’t think so. We know too much about them. We get their music, movies, series, news, culture… From what I know, life would not be so much different from the life I had before. Also, I have lived in the US long ago. Back then, I did not realize all the nuances and particularities I noticed last semester, when I was living there for a few months again. Since we know so much, it is a hard place to feel like an outsider. Maybe it will be more comfortable, but less eye-opening.

What I want to show now, specially now, is that going to the US does not have to be the ultimate dream or the best/only choice. The world is a big place, and great opportunities are available everywhere. We just need to remember that opportunities should encompass employment *and* life as well.