4 ms·

Google is making tremendous strides in AI research, they're betting the company on it.

acdha 9y ago
This is the same Google which was started to commercialize the NSF-sponsored work that Larry Page and Sergei Brin did? The same one which hired many of the DARPA grand challenge winners to work on self-driving cars? The one whose AI efforts are being performed by a number of prominent researchers whose work and training was significantly supported by federal research grants? Google is great but I see them as an example of the public / private pairing working out well and generating far more new economic value than went into that foundational spending.
- paulsutter 9y ago
  I was responding to this particular question: > Are you thinking google would be willing to risk their ad revenue for a cool new tech? University and government research is also super important. Google publishes papers not code, whereas universities often publish their code and that's doing more to move AI forward than Google. But Google is willing to make large research bets too.
  - acdha 9y ago
    Yeah, I'm definitely not saying Google isn't doing important work. I just think this highlights the key role government funding plays in ensuring that businesses don't have to pay for all of that basic research and training. That's basically the answer to that question: Google isn't risking their core business on this because so much of the foundation has been set. If, say, in 2003 they'd gone to investors and asked for money to fund AI research it'd have been seen as too risky, especially since the collapse of the 1980s AI bubble was still well within living memory. Once NSF, DARPA, et al. had continued to fund the scientists, however, things matured to the point where it has a more acceptable level of risk to get in on a huge field.
    - paulsutter 9y ago
      Yeah so awesome that the whole world can coast to success now that DARPA derisked the future.
      - acdha 9y ago
        “derisked” is [willful?] misrepresentation. This isn't a hard argument: board early research requires a lot of speculative work which doesn't pan out for everything which does, not to mention tons of basic training and equipment investment. Companies have a hard time justifying that and, unsurprisingly, the record shows they largely don't. Government funding operates with different incentives and timescales and has a lengthy track record of success getting ideas to the point where companies are willing to foot the remaining development costs.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- skookumchuck 9y ago
  On the other hand, jet engines were developed by private concerns and only when flying jets were demonstrated were governments interested in it. The idea that government funding is necessary for funding disruptive new technologies is not supported by historical evidence.
  - acdha 9y ago
    Most of the 20th century's defining technologies started that way, from microchips and the internet to biotech. You don't need to get everything to say that the model can support a few misses. The jet engine case seems especially hard to claim as an exception since early development was predicated on military sales and, for example, a quick trip to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_jet_engine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_jet_engine shows the origins of both the British and German programs being a RAF officer's patent-worthy idea. Remember, I'm not saying that the government invents everything but that basic reasearch and major long-term development is hard to do when you need to show profits right now. The history of your example shows many examples of that process where the government funding allowed things to reach the point where they could be successfully commercialized for other purposes.
    - skookumchuck 9y ago
      The financing of Whittle's and Ohain's jet engines did not come from the government, nor did government finance their incorporation into working, flying aircraft. Whittle's idea he had on his own, not as part of a government research project. The US military even ordered Lockheed to stop working on a jet engine, and concentrate on piston engines. This changed after being faced with the ME-262. The transistor, too. Airplanes. Liquid fueled rockets. Communications satellites (Arthur Clarke). Radio. TV. Einstein. C. C++. Java. C#. And the glaring absense of defining technologies coming from communist economies, where it was 100% government doing the research. The US government spends megabucks on R+D. It would be astonishing if that produced no results. But it is an error to thereby conclude that new technologies could not otherwise exist.
      - 9y ago

This is the same Google which was started to commercialize the NSF-sponsored work that Larry Page and Sergei Brin did? The same one which hired many of the DARPA grand challenge winners to work on self-driving cars? The one whose AI efforts are being performed by a number of prominent researchers whose work and training was significantly supported by federal research grants? Google is great but I see them as an example of the public / private pairing working out well and generating far more new economic value than went into that foundational spending.

paulsutter 9y ago
I was responding to this particular question: > Are you thinking google would be willing to risk their ad revenue for a cool new tech? University and government research is also super important. Google publishes papers not code, whereas universities often publish their code and that's doing more to move AI forward than Google. But Google is willing to make large research bets too.
- acdha 9y ago
  Yeah, I'm definitely not saying Google isn't doing important work. I just think this highlights the key role government funding plays in ensuring that businesses don't have to pay for all of that basic research and training. That's basically the answer to that question: Google isn't risking their core business on this because so much of the foundation has been set. If, say, in 2003 they'd gone to investors and asked for money to fund AI research it'd have been seen as too risky, especially since the collapse of the 1980s AI bubble was still well within living memory. Once NSF, DARPA, et al. had continued to fund the scientists, however, things matured to the point where it has a more acceptable level of risk to get in on a huge field.
  - paulsutter 9y ago
    Yeah so awesome that the whole world can coast to success now that DARPA derisked the future.
    - acdha 9y ago
      “derisked” is [willful?] misrepresentation. This isn't a hard argument: board early research requires a lot of speculative work which doesn't pan out for everything which does, not to mention tons of basic training and equipment investment. Companies have a hard time justifying that and, unsurprisingly, the record shows they largely don't. Government funding operates with different incentives and timescales and has a lengthy track record of success getting ideas to the point where companies are willing to foot the remaining development costs.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
skookumchuck 9y ago
On the other hand, jet engines were developed by private concerns and only when flying jets were demonstrated were governments interested in it. The idea that government funding is necessary for funding disruptive new technologies is not supported by historical evidence.
- acdha 9y ago
  Most of the 20th century's defining technologies started that way, from microchips and the internet to biotech. You don't need to get everything to say that the model can support a few misses. The jet engine case seems especially hard to claim as an exception since early development was predicated on military sales and, for example, a quick trip to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_jet_engine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_jet_engine shows the origins of both the British and German programs being a RAF officer's patent-worthy idea. Remember, I'm not saying that the government invents everything but that basic reasearch and major long-term development is hard to do when you need to show profits right now. The history of your example shows many examples of that process where the government funding allowed things to reach the point where they could be successfully commercialized for other purposes.
  - skookumchuck 9y ago
    The financing of Whittle's and Ohain's jet engines did not come from the government, nor did government finance their incorporation into working, flying aircraft. Whittle's idea he had on his own, not as part of a government research project. The US military even ordered Lockheed to stop working on a jet engine, and concentrate on piston engines. This changed after being faced with the ME-262. The transistor, too. Airplanes. Liquid fueled rockets. Communications satellites (Arthur Clarke). Radio. TV. Einstein. C. C++. Java. C#. And the glaring absense of defining technologies coming from communist economies, where it was 100% government doing the research. The US government spends megabucks on R+D. It would be astonishing if that produced no results. But it is an error to thereby conclude that new technologies could not otherwise exist.
    - 9y ago