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For anyone curious about why Apple is allowing its researchers to (anonymously) publish papers like these on an Apple blog, it's because of this: Apple’s direc

For anyone curious about why Apple is allowing its researchers to (anonymously) publish papers like these on an Apple blog, it's because of this: Apple’s director of AI research Russ Salakhutdinov has announced at a conference that the company’s machine-learning researchers will be free to publish their findings. This is an apparent reversal of Apple's previous position. Refusing permission to publish was said to be keeping the company out of the loop and meaning that the best people in the field didn’t want to work for Apple. From: https://9to5mac.com/2016/12/06/apple-ai-researchers-can-publish/ https://9to5mac.com/2016/12/06/apple-ai-researchers-can-publ... We will see whether this move is sufficient to attract the top talent they're looking for.

amelius 9y ago
> Apple’s director of AI research Russ Salakhutdinov has announced at a conference that the company’s machine-learning researchers will be free to publish their findings. This is an apparent reversal of Apple's previous position. How about researchers in other fields?!?
- egyptiankarim 9y ago
  Right?! I can't wait for the computer-human interaction research teams to jump on this trend and start publishing! The CHI/HCI/HCC community would flip out. My favorite example of how this sort of transparency would benefit the community: In 2009, Microsoft published an academic paper called "Mouse 2.0" (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/mouse-2-0-multi-touch-meets-the-mouse/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/mouse-2...), where they walked through the research prototypes for touch-sensitive peripherals. The paper was met with awe and acclaim... A mere few months before Apple took the Magic Mouse to market.
  - optimuspaul 9y ago
    Months? The Magic Mouse was released a few weeks later, not nearly enough time to develop the product based on the paper.
    - egyptiankarim 9y ago
      My implication was that Apple had been doing that research work behind the scenes the entire time.
  - threeseed 9y ago
    > A mere few months before Apple took the Magic Mouse to market Apple released the iPhone 2 years before the Magic Mouse and that paper was released. Quite sure that it was also an inspiration.
    - egyptiankarim 9y ago
      Definitely.
  - mcphage 9y ago
    > A mere few months before Apple took the Magic Mouse to market. So you're implying that Apple saw the idea, copied it, and used it to bring a product to market—in months? That's not how any of that works.
    - nl 9y ago
      No, the implication was that Apple had been working on similar ideas but hadn't published them.
      - egyptiankarim 9y ago
        Exactly!
andyjohnson0 9y ago
I wonder - is there really any prestige to be had from publishing anonymously?
- jtraffic 9y ago
  No, none. I suppose they want researchers to be motivated merely by the ability to contribute knowledge to the ML community?
  - wickawic 9y ago
    > I suppose they want researchers to be motivated merely by the ability to contribute knowledge I might phrase it more as "They want researchers who are already motivated by the contribution of knowledge" I know that if I were an ML researcher I would not be happy with all my findings being horded by a single company when the field overall is making lots of progress.
- throwaway91111 9y ago
  Who the hell publishes for prestige? Most people won't be able to understand, let alone care, about your research.
  - freyir 9y ago
    > Most people won't be able to understand, let alone care, about your research? The intended audience is other researchers in your field, not the general public. Your reputation as an academic or researcher rest on your publication record (plus your ability to land funding). If you publish highly-cited papers in prestigious journals or conference proceedings, you're considered among the best in your field. This opens the door to promotions, better job offers, etc. Researchers at Apple have historically forgone the ability to publish. They have no reputation in the field. This significantly harms their ability to get a job elsewhere as a researcher.
  - fsloth 9y ago
    Professional prestige. If you need an ELY5 answer plese just request one...
auggierose 9y ago
Why would I want to publish stuff if I cannot put my name on it? I guess that shows that "rich != smart".
- banned1 9y ago
  I am assuming it is because they are getting paid by Apple.
- coldtea 9y ago
  No, but "machine learning researcher working for a major company" = "smart".
- egyptiankarim 9y ago
  The occasional blowhard professor aside, there is a thread of idealism in many research circles that advancing the field is more important than advancing one's stature. My favorite example of this is all of the research that went into the creation of Bitcoin and the still unknown identity of its creator.
  - jjxw 9y ago
    Not to presume any motivations of Bitcoin's creator, but it doesn't hurt when the success of your research also nets you an incredible amount of wealth. Though, as far as I know the presumed wallet that he owns has not had any funds moved off of it so at least their interest is aligned with the success of Bitcoin.
  - auggierose 9y ago
    That's a nice example. But putting your name on your research is not so much about stature. Publishing anonymously is more akin to giving your baby up for adoption. Sure, there are people doing this, and they even might have a good reason for it, but if you demand that upfront then most people never would have babies.
    - egyptiankarim 9y ago
      Fair enough. I know lots of researchers are very personally invested in their work and I can imagine the sting. I promise I wasn't calling you a blowhard or anything :)
ForrestN 9y ago
It is not at all clear that this new publication indicates that researchers will not also be allowed to publish in existing journals.
make3 9y ago
Really, anonymously, wow. Apple going to crazy lengths to keep the price of their researchers down. I'm never stepping foot there again.
- eridius 9y ago
  It's not anonymous. The end of the article says > For more details on the work we describe in this article, see our CVPR paper “Learning from Simulated and Unsupervised Images through Adversarial Training” [10]. And the citation is > [10] A. Shrivastava, T. Pfister, O. Tuzel, J. Susskind, W. Wang, R. Webb, Learning from Simulated and Unsupervised Images through Adversarial Training. CVPR, 2017. So it looks like those are the authors.
pducks32 9y ago
Apple and many tech companies are a world where association is everything. “I work at Palantir” means a lot. “I work at Uber” at the moment may be both positive and negative. The academic world is not like this at all. Paper count is everything. Churn them out with all the power you have. Most universities allow their teachers to take sabbaticals on the hope (and sometimes mandate) that they will publish. So Apple was not going to find many academic researchers who were okay with not being allowed to interact in the same way with their community.
- hueving 9y ago
  >“I work at Palantir” means a lot. To who? When I hear that I just think that means you are a naive fresh graduate doing basic data cleaning tasks.
  - denzil_correa 9y ago
    > When I hear that I just think that means you are a naive fresh graduate doing basic data cleaning tasks Isn't that presumptuous?
    - freyir 9y ago
      Is it presumptuous if it's true with high probability?
Iv 9y ago
I think that is something that is worth repeating, telling and shouting: AI research is being open-sourced (arguably the most important research to make in the open, ever) because researcher DEMANDED it. And were ready to refuse job offers for ideological reasons. As someone who has turned down offers in the military, I have often heard that it was childish and inefficient to have ideals when hunting for jobs. Well, here is the proof that it is not. I really congratulate these researchers. By their perseverance alone they may be helping avoid one of the most worrisome dystopia ever anticipate by SF writers.
- Cacti 9y ago
  Meh, not really. You're expected to publish in the field and your future job prospects depend on it. These people just want to ensure they can easily go to other companies/orgs.
  - blazespin 9y ago
    Yeah. Hard to develop a world class reputation squirreled away in the basement of Apple. This is the real reason Apple doesn't want their people publishing. Because Google will know who to snatch away! It's very much a kick the ladder away type of company.
  - digitalzombie 9y ago
    I guess the Apple should pay them well enough if they don't want them to leave. But you know they'll just spearhead another collusion with other tech company.
- vacri 9y ago
  > Well, here is the proof that it is not. For people with top-rated skills in heavy, heavy demand. If you're the unicorn that everyone's after, you've always been able to dictate your terms.
  - soVeryTired 9y ago
    I like the mixed metaphor

amelius 9y ago

> Apple’s director of AI research Russ Salakhutdinov has announced at a conference that the company’s machine-learning researchers will be free to publish their findings. This is an apparent reversal of Apple's previous position. How about researchers in other fields?!?

egyptiankarim 9y ago
Right?! I can't wait for the computer-human interaction research teams to jump on this trend and start publishing! The CHI/HCI/HCC community would flip out. My favorite example of how this sort of transparency would benefit the community: In 2009, Microsoft published an academic paper called "Mouse 2.0" (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/mouse-2-0-multi-touch-meets-the-mouse/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/mouse-2...), where they walked through the research prototypes for touch-sensitive peripherals. The paper was met with awe and acclaim... A mere few months before Apple took the Magic Mouse to market.
- optimuspaul 9y ago
  Months? The Magic Mouse was released a few weeks later, not nearly enough time to develop the product based on the paper.
  - egyptiankarim 9y ago
    My implication was that Apple had been doing that research work behind the scenes the entire time.
- threeseed 9y ago
  > A mere few months before Apple took the Magic Mouse to market Apple released the iPhone 2 years before the Magic Mouse and that paper was released. Quite sure that it was also an inspiration.
  - egyptiankarim 9y ago
    Definitely.
- mcphage 9y ago
  > A mere few months before Apple took the Magic Mouse to market. So you're implying that Apple saw the idea, copied it, and used it to bring a product to market—in months? That's not how any of that works.
  - nl 9y ago
    No, the implication was that Apple had been working on similar ideas but hadn't published them.
    - egyptiankarim 9y ago
      Exactly!

andyjohnson0 9y ago

I wonder - is there really any prestige to be had from publishing anonymously?

jtraffic 9y ago
No, none. I suppose they want researchers to be motivated merely by the ability to contribute knowledge to the ML community?
- wickawic 9y ago
  > I suppose they want researchers to be motivated merely by the ability to contribute knowledge I might phrase it more as "They want researchers who are already motivated by the contribution of knowledge" I know that if I were an ML researcher I would not be happy with all my findings being horded by a single company when the field overall is making lots of progress.
throwaway91111 9y ago
Who the hell publishes for prestige? Most people won't be able to understand, let alone care, about your research.
- freyir 9y ago
  > Most people won't be able to understand, let alone care, about your research? The intended audience is other researchers in your field, not the general public. Your reputation as an academic or researcher rest on your publication record (plus your ability to land funding). If you publish highly-cited papers in prestigious journals or conference proceedings, you're considered among the best in your field. This opens the door to promotions, better job offers, etc. Researchers at Apple have historically forgone the ability to publish. They have no reputation in the field. This significantly harms their ability to get a job elsewhere as a researcher.
- fsloth 9y ago
  Professional prestige. If you need an ELY5 answer plese just request one...

auggierose 9y ago

Why would I want to publish stuff if I cannot put my name on it? I guess that shows that "rich != smart".

banned1 9y ago
I am assuming it is because they are getting paid by Apple.
coldtea 9y ago
No, but "machine learning researcher working for a major company" = "smart".
egyptiankarim 9y ago
The occasional blowhard professor aside, there is a thread of idealism in many research circles that advancing the field is more important than advancing one's stature. My favorite example of this is all of the research that went into the creation of Bitcoin and the still unknown identity of its creator.
- jjxw 9y ago
  Not to presume any motivations of Bitcoin's creator, but it doesn't hurt when the success of your research also nets you an incredible amount of wealth. Though, as far as I know the presumed wallet that he owns has not had any funds moved off of it so at least their interest is aligned with the success of Bitcoin.
- auggierose 9y ago
  That's a nice example. But putting your name on your research is not so much about stature. Publishing anonymously is more akin to giving your baby up for adoption. Sure, there are people doing this, and they even might have a good reason for it, but if you demand that upfront then most people never would have babies.
  - egyptiankarim 9y ago
    Fair enough. I know lots of researchers are very personally invested in their work and I can imagine the sting. I promise I wasn't calling you a blowhard or anything :)

ForrestN 9y ago

It is not at all clear that this new publication indicates that researchers will not also be allowed to publish in existing journals.

make3 9y ago

Really, anonymously, wow. Apple going to crazy lengths to keep the price of their researchers down. I'm never stepping foot there again.

eridius 9y ago
It's not anonymous. The end of the article says > For more details on the work we describe in this article, see our CVPR paper “Learning from Simulated and Unsupervised Images through Adversarial Training” [10]. And the citation is > [10] A. Shrivastava, T. Pfister, O. Tuzel, J. Susskind, W. Wang, R. Webb, Learning from Simulated and Unsupervised Images through Adversarial Training. CVPR, 2017. So it looks like those are the authors.

pducks32 9y ago

Apple and many tech companies are a world where association is everything. “I work at Palantir” means a lot. “I work at Uber” at the moment may be both positive and negative. The academic world is not like this at all. Paper count is everything. Churn them out with all the power you have. Most universities allow their teachers to take sabbaticals on the hope (and sometimes mandate) that they will publish. So Apple was not going to find many academic researchers who were okay with not being allowed to interact in the same way with their community.

hueving 9y ago
>“I work at Palantir” means a lot. To who? When I hear that I just think that means you are a naive fresh graduate doing basic data cleaning tasks.
- denzil_correa 9y ago
  > When I hear that I just think that means you are a naive fresh graduate doing basic data cleaning tasks Isn't that presumptuous?
  - freyir 9y ago
    Is it presumptuous if it's true with high probability?

Iv 9y ago

I think that is something that is worth repeating, telling and shouting: AI research is being open-sourced (arguably the most important research to make in the open, ever) because researcher DEMANDED it. And were ready to refuse job offers for ideological reasons. As someone who has turned down offers in the military, I have often heard that it was childish and inefficient to have ideals when hunting for jobs. Well, here is the proof that it is not. I really congratulate these researchers. By their perseverance alone they may be helping avoid one of the most worrisome dystopia ever anticipate by SF writers.

Cacti 9y ago
Meh, not really. You're expected to publish in the field and your future job prospects depend on it. These people just want to ensure they can easily go to other companies/orgs.
- blazespin 9y ago
  Yeah. Hard to develop a world class reputation squirreled away in the basement of Apple. This is the real reason Apple doesn't want their people publishing. Because Google will know who to snatch away! It's very much a kick the ladder away type of company.
- digitalzombie 9y ago
  I guess the Apple should pay them well enough if they don't want them to leave. But you know they'll just spearhead another collusion with other tech company.
vacri 9y ago
> Well, here is the proof that it is not. For people with top-rated skills in heavy, heavy demand. If you're the unicorn that everyone's after, you've always been able to dictate your terms.
- soVeryTired 9y ago
  I like the mixed metaphor