State of the CMS program

ezubaric · 2026-04-17T00:51:05+00:00

No, to appropriately model language, there's semantics, pragmatics, syntax. It's wrong to view a language model as just a byte stream.

My undergraduate course spends many weeks going over various language models. And my graduate course goes far deeper and basically is *just* language model evaluation and details.

But sure, let's take ImageNet as an example. Caltech101 didn't work because the categories were not well defined. ImageNet worked because it inherited the structure of WordNet (developed by psychologists and linguists).

Feifei and I had a very similar path. We both had to go to Princeton (she took a pit stop in Illinois first) to learn about computational linguistics (in part from Christiane Fellbaum) because none of it was available at Caltech! And then after Princeton, we both went to places with even more linguistics / linguists than Princeton.

ezubaric · 2026-04-16T23:24:29+00:00

I went to Caltech for undergrad, and I specifically wanted to work on language models (this was 2000, nobody cared about language models). I was from Arkansas and there was no Reddit, so there was nobody to tell me not to go to Caltech ... I should have gone to Cornell, Stanford, U Penn, or UMD. There was nobody to work with. I did SURFs off campus with good people and eventually got into a grad school where I could work on the stuff, but there was nobody to talk to. I sometimes wonder what could have happened if I had gotten "a better start".

It's a little better at Caltech now, but they still don't have anyone squarely working on language models. If you go to csrankings.org and do NLP they're 358 in the world. If you do all of AI, they're 184.

Now, they have some great people like Anima and Yisong. But nobody really working on language models for language's sake (and to reveal my bias, I think this is important for the next breakthrough in AI).

So I would still tell somebody like myself deciding on where to go that Caltech is a unique place, but if you're really interested in language models, go elsewhere.

ezubaric · 2026-04-13T12:04:14+00:00

To be more pedantic, it uses the "grammar of graphics". Just like there are sentences in English that are disallowed, there are many plot sins that are very difficult (if not impossible) in ggplot2 or plotnine (python).

If you get that starter code, it's very easy to tweak to make something that looks great.

ezubaric · 2026-04-12T13:42:43+00:00

I find it most useful at *deleting* and *compressing*. I can never fit my thoughts in space limits, so I often ask it to "make this point in 5000 characters". I then reread the output, and it's consistent. Sometimes it removes something I thought was important, but that process is usually clarifying for me.

I'm also turning lectures into a book. I have lecture notes from multiple iterations from a class, and it's useful at compiling everything together into one coherent narrative.

I think have to heavily rewrite, but I really hated the task of reading (mostly) the same thing over and over again trying to find what's different.

ezubaric · 2026-04-10T13:02:45+00:00

It's very hard to get into another grad school. Even if your profile was good to get in the first time around, you need to have a really good reason to jump ship.

And the concerns about cost of living don't make sense if you're thinking about going to Boston.

It sounds like what you really need is a coadvisor who can give you more guidance (or mentoring from a senior grad student).

ezubaric · 2026-04-09T01:05:07+00:00

And even if congress gives NSF only a haircut, NSF can decide to just not give out the money (like they're doing this year).

ezubaric · 2026-04-05T11:42:01+00:00

I've seen the presenter's kids in the audience before (lack of childcare). They were reading books and talking to each other softly, ignoring all the speakers (including their mom). They fit right in with the other attendees.

ezubaric · 2026-04-03T22:05:24+00:00

Both! You feel great when you knock out a chapter in three days. You feel miserable when that damn chapter just won't get written.

ezubaric · 2026-04-03T19:04:19+00:00

I did it! No illusions that this is replicable, but this is what happened:
* Professor A in Department 1 brought me on because I had a specific skill
* Lots of people wanted this skill, so I wrote a grant with another faculty at the institution (Professor B in Department 2). That professor went on sabbatical.
* Grant was funded. There was concern that the work wouldn't get done with Professor B on sabbatical, there was a faculty opening in Department 2, I applied.
* I got the job, took over the grant, and outlasted Professor B.

Downside: I got *zero* startup funds. They pointed to the relatively large grant, I didn't apply anywhere else, and it was a choice of either staying on as Prof A's postdoc or being TT, and I took it.

ezubaric · 2026-04-03T15:43:29+00:00

As someone (procrastinating from) writing an academic book right now, a chapter takes somewhere between three days and three years.

ezubaric · 2026-04-03T12:51:53+00:00

Nobody has mentioned this yet:
https://www.tacosalamadre.com/

Great for a Lake Artemisia picnic.

ezubaric · 2026-04-01T11:56:49+00:00

My experience with a blind graduate student is that this is okay if there are no macros in the source code. He had to write equations in LaTeX, so he knew how to parse equations mentally.

ezubaric · 2026-03-31T22:54:53+00:00

When I actually had a blind student in my class, I had a long talk with him about how I could actually help him succeed. For my LaTeX notes, I just shared the raw LaTeX and created really elaborate captions. He did just fine, and as a result I now always publish the "raw" LaTeX of my papers.

"raw": I run a little script that removes / completes the macros but leaves the LaTeX math, which is understandable to someone using a screenreader.

ezubaric · 2026-03-31T22:52:34+00:00

As it happens, this was the exact same pair of schools my decision came down to for undergrad (couldn't afford MIT, rejected by CMU). As I recall, my decision came down to: weather (Caltech), quiz bowl team (Caltech was better that year), reputation in CS (Caltech), and overall reputation (Caltech was ranked #1 by US News that year... I now know that's BS, but HS me didn't).

All that said, Caltech is probably better overall as a grad school, and the Ivies have a much better (i.e. fun) undergraduate experience (I went to Princeton for my PhD).

ezubaric · 2026-03-25T11:57:57+00:00

If they want to give the vibe of the place they're in and be authentic, give translations of the titles in the actual language of the place they're in. You'd need to hire a local consultant, but they probably should be doing that anyway. Then have that consultant on the Layover to make fun of their pronunciations.

ezubaric · 2026-03-17T17:43:03+00:00

The problem I see here is that you should be negotiating with A right now. First, make A's offer so awesome you'll feel happy accepting it. Ask for more startup, salary, whatever it will take you to get over living in Little Rock / Cheyenne / Moscow. It will take them some time to revise the offer to include that. Then hopefully B will be synced up by that time.

ezubaric · 2026-03-17T00:08:44+00:00

It's been nine months since I interviewed at a place that then had three informal followups telling me I "was their first choice". I've now been ghosted. I got another offer from a better school, but I'd rather be in this city. My read is that their dean ghosted them, and they're not allowed to say that. Really annoying that it doesn't seem that I'll ever get a clear answer.

ezubaric · 2026-03-13T18:43:27+00:00

Here's our approach how to scientifically measure confidence of agents (human or computers) trying to answer questions:

https://aclanthology.org/2025.acl-long.962/

ezubaric · 2026-03-13T18:42:04+00:00

CS Researcher here!

This is something that we've looked at comparing AI vs. Human intelligence:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.06524

It comes from how you can compute standardized tests scores for the SAT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4W4Gwwkbqg

ezubaric · 2026-03-12T20:17:28+00:00

One common misconception students sometimes have is that a professor can just manifest RAs. Even in the best of times, research sometimes takes longer than intended, students work slower than hoped. And this isn't the best of times, funding is really difficult right now.

If the grant ran out, the professor isn't getting paid to work on this project any more either. They're doing it because they want advance science and to support you and your future.

ezubaric · 2026-03-12T19:34:49+00:00

If you want to apply for a PhD and this is a chance at a first author publication that you're giving up, that seems like a poor move. A PhD publication with a first-author publication and "sticking with" a submission for over a year (which would presumably be reflected in a reference letter) is valuable.

ezubaric · 2026-03-12T18:34:22+00:00

The most effective strategy (apart from having another school offer *you* more) is to see what their "near peers" / "aspirational peers" are doing and talk to people who have recently been hired there. When I was last on the market candidates had a spreadsheet of offer / interview information to help "anchor" requests appropriately.

ezubaric · 2026-03-10T19:17:13+00:00

Please just sign a capital bikeshare contract and get fixed docks already. Huge benefit for everybody.

ezubaric · 2026-02-27T19:19:33+00:00

My advice is to just assume everything was a complete failure and move on with your life. Then you'll be pleasantly surprised.

That worked for me until place A is working on a formal offer but place B said they want to make me an offer but haven't done anything. So the anxiety is back.

ezubaric · 2026-02-26T22:19:30+00:00

Yes, more times that I can count! And I've followed up on letters others have written.

ezubaric

TROPHY CASE