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Show HN: AI Grant – Get $2,500 for your AI project in minutes
Hi HN,
Last year, we launched a non-profit AI research lab called AI Grant (http://aigrant.org http://aigrant.org). Our goal is to fund promising people around the world working on AI. No strings attached. We've since given away over $100,000 to 30 teams working on different projects. You can see some of them here: http://aigrant.org/#finalists http://aigrant.org/#finalists. We just started accepting applications for our third batch!
The academic grant application process is burdensome. It's only avalible to a choice few. Applications take days to complete.
AI Grant is open to anyone on the internet. You can apply in under an hour. Fellows get:
- $2,500 in cash.
- $20,000 each in Google Compute Engine credits.
- $5k in CrowdFlower data labeling credits.
- ScaleAPI data labeling credits.
- Access to the network of other Fellows
Our long term goal is to build an online community of people working on interesting side-projects in AI, supporting each other. We've built some infrastructure around this (chatrooms, group video conferences). We'll continue to expand this over time. I'd be very curious to know what HN thinks about this idea, and how we might make it better.
Thanks!
- tkosan 9y agoI have had access to the research version of Cyc (http://www.cyc.com/ http://www.cyc.com/) for over a year, and its capabilities are breathtaking. If aigrant.org had a subcommunity of people who were working on Cyc-related side-projects, I would definitely be interested in contributing to it. What would be helpful is if aigrant.org could provide an account on a Cyc instance to community members.
- danicgross 9y agoCould you email me so that I could learn more about providing this? daniel@aigrant.org. Thanks!
- tootie 9y agoI'm curious what you saw it doing. Cyc has been a vaporware product for many many years. It's had corporate backing on and off for a long time and produced next to nothing.
- tkosan 9y agoI spend 1-2 hours each day learning Cyc, and each day I see it do something new. For example, I just asked Cyc "Where did the 2012 Summer Olympics take place?" and this was its response: %cycl,microtheory="InferencePSC" (eventOccursAt (SummerOlympicsFn (YearFn 2012)) ?VAR) %/cycl %output,mpversion=".257",preserve="false" # ?VAR --- --------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 UnitedKingdomOfGreatBritainAndNorthernIreland 2 England 3 EasternContinent 4 ContinentOfEurasia 5 Occident 6 MilkyWay-Galaxy 7 PlanetEarth 8 NorthernHemisphere-Region 9 ContinentOfEurope 10 CityOfLondonEngland . %/output
- modeless 9y agoGoogle, Bing, Wolfram Alpha, and Siri all parse that query properly and answer it perfectly. Do you have an example of something Cyc does that none of those services do?
- nl 9y agoAnd it's worth noting that Google and Bing generate that answer without human intervention, so no complex data engineering etc..
- mv4 9y agobreathtaking?
- StrangeSound 9y agoDo you know if there are any open-source projects that are similar?
- tkosan 9y agoDoug Lenat (who started the Cyc project) says Cyc is the "last man standing" of the large logic-based AI projects. So I don't think any open-source projects that are similar to it exist. If aigrant.org was able to provide accounts on a Cyc system to community members, would you be interested in having one?
- jamestimmins 9y agoThis is awesome, I love the idea that you can be working on a side project and still get support.
- spikefromspace 9y agoThis is awesome! The apply link (https://apply.aigrant.org/ https://apply.aigrant.org/) is not working for me however.
- danicgross 9y agoSorry, our DNS provider was having issues. Please take another look now. Thanks!
- spikefromspace 9y agoNo problem, works now. Thanks!
- CocoaGeek 9y agoI would apply but I'm not sure how that will be considered as I'm on a work visa :(
- danicgross 9y agoYou can always decide not to take the grant if you're accepted. At the very least, the application process will serve as a potential way to validate your idea.
- CocoaGeek 9y agoGood to know, thanks!
- paulie_a 9y agoI am not a huge fan of NDAs but I wouldn't give your idea away to someone just for validation.
- fashionrob 9y agoShallow thinking. I personally believe the idea has value only in relation to how well it can be executed upon. If can be built easily, then it will be copied anyway.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- paulie_a 9y agoI agree that it is shallow thinking, but this is some random application for the potential of a small amount of money. Some one else can validate the idea easily
- UperSpaceGuru 9y agoI, for one, am a believer that ideas are a dime a dozen. I actually had my idea stolen, by a better funded company (yes it involved AI). But that made me even more of a believer. Even though this other company had far more engineers & was able to replicate a seemingly copycat product after I refused their buyout offer, their execution sucked(which was a key reason I refused, rather die broke than work for a company that think engineers need daily beatings to be exploited properly by great “business” minds) However, they were VC backed & their board made them shut the product down and we ended up getting all the customers they brought on in the copycat product. The people behind AIGrant.org have solid geek creds & given their backgrounds can probably come up with more creative ideas than trying to scrape ideas off the web the offering large bounties. What’s really awesome to witness is that here’s a coupe of geeks actually “executing” on their vision. I’m a little jealous because I should’ve stared something like this, but instead I’d rather just support AIGrant.org because building & executing even benevolent ideas take a ton of effort.
- aphextron 9y agoWhy limit yourself to AI? And what exactly qualifies specifically as "AI"?
- danicgross 9y agoFocus helps one make a great product (for example, domain-specific content and community). In time, we'll expand. If this strategy works, it can be an accelerant to almost all areas of research. We're liberal with the definition of AI.
- bcheung 9y agoHow often are these running? I'm currently taking the Udacity Deep Learning nanodegree and have some ideas I want to try out once I'm done. Having credits to train and generate labeled samples would be really helpful.
- danicgross 9y agoWe hope to do a few more, but don't know exactly when. When in doubt, just apply! At the very least the process will sharpen your thinking on the project you're considering.
- Xcelerate 9y agoDoes this apply to work that is deeply theoretical as well? (e.g. studying/experimenting with tiny Turing machines in an attempt to approximate AIXI-like algorithms)
- danicgross 9y agoAs long as you can articulate why your project would be useful, we're interested. Theoretical or not. It just needs to be useful to other humans. Or AGIs. (Kidding. Mostly.)
- mistrial9 9y agohmm.. unless the sponsors publish the names of successful recipients, there is nothing to say this is what it is presented as.. (I did not visit the site)
- danicgross 9y agoTry visiting the site, I think you'll be pleased!
- bittercynic 9y agoIs there any solid evidence of this being legit? The web sites [1][2]seem kind of thin, and maybe the whole game is to collect a bunch of contact info for AI researchers. I imagine one could sell that list to recruiters. [1]http://www.cyc.com/ http://www.cyc.com/ [2]http://aigrant.org/ http://aigrant.org/
- danicgross 9y agoNo! I don't know anything about Cyc, but AI Grant is very real. I run YC AI (http://ycombinator.com/ai http://ycombinator.com/ai). Nat is the VP of Developer Services at Microsoft. We're not doing this to sell info to recruiters. We're doing this because we're passionate about AI research. And because we think the best ideas often come from the fringe. We want to encourage others to take their side projects more seriously. Feel free to message any of our existing Fellows and ask about their experience.
- bittercynic 9y agoSorry I voiced that musing. Guess I was just being true to my username.
- crankylinuxuser 9y agoNah, these days, you can't always be sure that someone's running a grift. The internet sure as hell makes it easy and approaching $0 to scam. And being cranky as well, I get it. But this is legit.
- tomkinson 9y agoPls consider changing the 'grant in minutes'. I am busy so I read the headline and jumped right to the page URL. It said nothing of the substantial requirements and commitments both data and time. That should be spelled out up front. This felt very un-comfortable, to keep being asked for more. If nothing else, spell out what you want upfront. - Application form - 100 question personality test - 10 question spatial test prelim - 20 min spatial test - who knows
- 9y ago
- lowglow 9y agoPart 2 of this application is weird. ---snip--- Experimental Assessments Thank you for completing your project description. Next you'll be presented two assessments: a 10-minute personality questionnaire, followed by a 20-minute brain teaser. This part is an experiment. Selections will be driven by your project description, not your score on this test. However, you're required to complete this section to submit your application. ---snip---
- danicgross 9y agoThanks for the feedback! Some extra context: Since we’re hoping to scale the program one day, we’re looking for better ways to identify scientists we should support. Per the description, it’s very experimental and we’re open to any feedback you have.
- michaelgreen 9y agoIs there a name for the pattern recognition section? I'd be interested in reading more about it and how you use it as a measurement/how the results correlate with the decision process. Does it tie in with the behavioral aspect at all or are they completely independent?
- logicallee 9y agoI think the process is great! It's super fast. I hope you do get to glance at the "IQ" test results - if someone is four standard deviations (160 IQ - doesn't describe me) above the mean, then you should fund them even if you don't understand one word of their description. Maybe nobody does in the entire world except for them. Kudos on the process. Nothing wrong with it.
- thecatspaw 9y agoall that IQ tests validate is how well someone can take an IQ test. It means absolutely nothing in terms of validity of ideas, business sense, self motivation, discipline, leadership skills etc.
- guy_c 9y agoHas CrowdFlower renamed? Their website now redirects to https://www.figure-eight.com/ https://www.figure-eight.com/
- AlphaWeaver 9y agoYes, they are now FigureEight.
- hbcondo714 9y agoOh man, I just spent the last few hours writing my application and now it's asking me to complete "a 10-minute personality questionnaire, followed by a 20-minute brain teaser"
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dawnerd 9y agoI guess "in minutes" is subjective.
- thedatamonger 9y agodoesn't Einsteins theory of relativity tells us as much?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- giglamesh 9y agoHow many minutes are there in a day?
- solarkraft 9y agoWell, 7 hours are also some amount of minutes.
- WorkLifeBalance 9y ago"No strings attached" seems a bit disingenuous too if it requires taking aptitude and psychometric tests.
- anc84 9y agoWell, they need to train their AI project on something, right?
- 9y ago
- pjrule 9y agoThis is a fantastic idea, and I think I’ll definitely be applying! Have you considered offering two tiers of grants? Most AI side projects don’t necessarily require ~$30k in resources, but I’m sure many people, including myself, could benefit from ~$3k in GCE credit. Opening up the same total resources to more people would allow for a greater number of moonshots, which are what this grant seems to be about. :)
- maaaats 9y agoI could use the cash and some of the credits, but most of it wouldn't be used. But maybe I'm one of few doing AI projects not involving a deep neural net? Hehe.
- freehunter 9y ago>maybe I'm one of few doing AI projects not involving a deep neural net You're not. While progress in machine learning is astounding and is going to do great things for humanity, it is kind of frustrating that "AI" to many people these days means neural nets, deep learning, high-end GPUs, and huge datasets. Not every problem needs machine learning as a solution, and there are still some of us solving hard problems with classical AI and old fashioned data analysis. But it's not trendy right now.
- solarkraft 9y agoWhat kinds of problems are best solved by AI, but not deep learning/neural nets?
- freehunter 9y agoNatural language processing is a big area where classical AI is heavily used and machine learning is lagging behind. ML is terrible at teaching computers to read and/or produce human writing. Compare what the company Automated Insights is doing for news articles versus neural networks writing books and movie scripts (with humorous results). Anything with a known and well-defined set of rules can also be programmed more efficiently with decision trees/Markov chain than through machine learning. There's no need to use tons of data to train a model to do something over time when all it needs is the rule book. Machine learning is basically advanced pattern matching, neural nets often require you to brute force the problem with tons of data. There are plenty of places where you're not matching patterns and you don't have tons of data but the computer still needs to make a decision after analyzing the data that is available.
- aabajian 9y agoI completed the whole application and then it presented the quiz/survey. I didn't have time to complete it so I closed the window. I never created an account...does your application save automatically? Seems like poor design to have users fill out an application without logging in and then showing them a survey that they may not have time to complete.
- danicgross 9y agoThanks for the feedback! Your application progress does save when you advance. You should have a link in your email to restore it. Please email me if you don’t: daniel@aigrant.org. We will also communicate the upfront time investment more clearly.
- richard___ 9y agoThis personality test is interesting. I can see why YC would want this data.
- tomkinson 9y ago'in minutes' lol. Read the fine print folks!! This ain't no minutes.
- icc97 9y agoPerhaps they're over stating it. But it's still probably an easier/faster way to get funding than traditional research grants.
- tomkinson 9y agoTo me it wasn't the time commitment, it was the deception. Felt like a sweepstakes eventually because they are not upfront, and you give very private information. They know what's up with how it was designed and marketed (headline) and if they don't I humerously question whether they should be doling out AI grants.
- tzahola 9y agominutes = more than one minute
- danicgross 9y agoThanks for the feedback. Will make the upfront time investment more clear.
- icc97 9y agoOf the finalists: > Zbigniew Wojna (co-author of Inception-v3, one of the first better-than-humans perception models), object detection and instance segmentation for small objects This looks really important. At the moment there's no way that Tesla's can avoid small animals and birds. This means that both the animal gets killed and it's likely that the human will crash after from the panic of hitting an animal. The list in general is interesting as it shows what people are working on, so it's insight into current research even before a paper or results are released.
- freehunter 9y agoIt's incredibly dangerous to brake, swerve, or otherwise alter your course for a non-life-threatening object in the road. People have died from this, and people have gone to jail doing this [1]. If people are likely to crash from panic after hitting a small animal, they're more likely to crash when the car swerves and then can't regain control afterwards. When you're about to hit a deer, the advice is to brake hard, but never swerve. Because you're never going to keep control of your car when you're both braking and swerving, and if you hit someone in the oncoming lane while swerving, you are at fault. I don't like it either, but occasionally hitting animals crossing the road is the price we pay for millions of miles of high-speed pavement crossing the country. Hitting small animals is the best outcome in that situation, as opposed to hitting larger animals like deer (where the driver can be killed or seriously injured too). Please don't brake or swerve for small animals. You could very likely end up killing another person in the process. [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/12/17/canada-ducklings-highway-fatal-court/20513845/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/12/17/canada-...
- icc97 9y agoPrecisely why we want collision-detection to be able to spot the animal and brake earlier than the human could. I agree swerving is a problem, but I see no problem with braking. If you brake and the car behind you crashes into you that is their fault not yours. Cars should be maintaining a 3-4s gap precisely because the car in front could brake suddenly at any point.
- bryanph_ 9y agoWe need grants based on the outcome of the project, not based on what technology is used to achieve it.
- graeham 9y agoI don't think it's 100% of either of these (outcome vs tech used). If its true research, the outcome isn't known. There are major benefits in developing technology for it's own sake, which then provides tools that can be used towards other applications.
- YetAnotherNick 9y agoBefore I fill the form, can you please give a quick disclosure about any other interest that you have in this, if any, specially about the data. There are lot of threads about some suspicion here, but I can't find any direct response.
- danicgross 9y agoSigh. Hacker News is a suspicious place these days. We have no rights to anything you produce, or datasets you use. We just want to help budding scientists. We are asking people to do a 30 minute quiz once the application is filled out. It’s 100% experimental, but the long term goal is to try and see if there are any ways we can scale this program one day. For example: if it turned out that all the Fellows we funded did terribly on the test, we’d know the test is bad. If they did really well on one question, we’d know we found something that would help us find more people in the future. We’re not going to sell the applications in any way. Please email me if you have any concerns: daniel@aigrant.org.
- cmontella 9y ago> Sigh. Hacker News is a suspicious place these days. We have no rights to anything you produce, or datasets you use. We just want to help budding scientists. It's not HN, it's the world. We live in a society where you have to beg and scrape for healthcare and a job and shelter. Then when you have it, the only way for most to keep it is to sell their labor to a corporation, who doesn't pay you for what it's actually worth (they take a profit). Then, when you go home to improve you life on your own time, the corporation tries to claim ownership over your ideas you work on in your spare time. What you're proposing, "no strings attached" is counter to almost every expectation we've had our entire lives regarding "a free lunch". i.e. there's no such thing.
- YetAnotherNick 9y agoI am so sorry to come as rude. But my question is least about reminding you the things that you are doing wrong. I wanted to ask you about the involvement of YC/Google/any third party, and if there is some expectation of them from this initiative. I really believe that you are doing this for the best of reason and want to see progress in this field, but there are other parties involved here.
- dvh 9y agoJust finished questionnaire. The "brain teaser" at the end is full blown IQ test. Which got me an idea. I know its all nice to pretend that everybody is equal and all that jazz, but if you want to make real scientific progress and not just let some code monkey glue couple libraries together and fixing problems on stackoverflow, you need someone really smart. And IQ test is good filter for that. So if I would want to grant money to random people and I have 100'000 applicants, I would just sort them by IQ, keep top 1% and manually sort them and pick a few. If that's your strategy then I'm screwd, I was always too slow on IQ tests.
- provost 9y agoWhile smarts are generally useful, is not creativity a stronger influencer in innovation? But I’m not sure what kind of test could measure creativity.
- jacobush 9y agoCreativity, and grit. Sometimes provided by different people.
- misnome 9y ago> If that's your strategy then I'm screwd, I was always too slow on IQ tests. Right, this approach would just select those people who are good at completing IQ tests. Which is a pretty common criticism of IQ tests.
- galieos_ghost 9y agoWhy wouldn't the ability to quickly process information be considered an important part of intelligence? A proper IQ test is very general and just tests processing speed and working memory. IQ has a higher correlation with future income than parent's earnings. If you had a choice between having 99th percentile IQ and being born into the 1% you'd be better off taking the IQ. The issue is that because IQ is highly heritable many in the 1% tend to be intelligent as well so the rich get richer.
- DrNuke 9y agoA few thousand smart people worldwide surrendering their more or less smart but however interesting AI ideas and their very own private psychometric data for a lottery ticket (say 1-2% winning chance) worth $2500 + unnecessary internet services? Come on YC, you can do much better than that.
- mciancia 9y ago> unnecessary internet services GCE credit might be useful for running GPU instances for training
- mv4 9y agoYou can get these from Google directly, or through one of the many accelerators and tech incubators - without providing all this data. As for CrowdFlower credits - I don't see why an aspiring AI company would want to build anything on top of another startup's technology stack, as opposed to building their own core tech.
- defluyter 9y ago"You can get these from Google directly, or through one of the many accelerators and tech incubators" How?
- mv4 9y ago... by applying to their Startup program: https://cloud.google.com/developers/startups/ https://cloud.google.com/developers/startups/
- chasedehan 9y agoProblem is that you have to be a part of one of the "current partners" so if you haven't joined an accelerator or have VC funding you don't get access. Unless I am mistaken. I'd be interested if I was able to find more credits for AWS/GCP/etc
- mavdi 9y agoThe description and intentions seems disingenuous from what I see and what others have commented. Please flag this.
- boardmad 9y agoComplete bobbins...avoid avoid avoid Unless some of the existing fundees come forward with verifiable credentials I wouldn't give this a moment
- callesgg 9y agoBuild us an atomic bomb and get $2,500..... AI is dangerous. If an AI becomes aware, what happens then? I used to think that it was insanely unlikely that an AI would become aware. But after many deep thoughts on what consciousness actually seam to be. I believe it could happen at any time now just by random chance. We are closing in on the number of neurons that i believe is required.
- xyproto 9y ago1. I'm not sure we have properly simulated even a single neuron yet. There are no signs of anything approaching general AI yet. 2. If a human is aware, what happens then? Not much.
- imglorp 9y agoWhat is a awareness and how will you tell? Why is awareness necessary for an AI to be dangerous? A swarm of armed, autonamous, UAVs is plenty terribad already, and Google's making them smarter. It doesn't take much smarts to "find squishy warm mobile things and put missile there".
- callesgg 9y ago> What is a awareness and how will you tell? I have no idea :) But i am Aware and dangerous, but if that awareness was taken from me and i became unaware a mouse could kill me. Not saying that awareness (whatever it is) is necessary.
- wilsonnb 9y agoWhat exactly was your thought process between "It's unlikely that AI will become aware" and "It could happen at any time now just by random chance"?
- callesgg 9y agoFirst it was like nah it will never happen "we don't even understand how our own consciousness works, or even what it is." Then it became "we don't even understand how our own consciousness works, or even what it is." So it could be anything. Even a 302 neuron network like the one in the C. elegans worm could be conscious from what we know. It was more of an instant realization. A realization about how little we actually know.
- mendeza 9y agoHow many grants will you be given out this year?
- himel132 9y agoHow many hours are there in a week?
- defluyter 9y agono confirmation email after applying?
- laythea 9y agoI am cynical. What's your angle? I presume that the idea here is to find open source projects to become heavily "invested" in, and then find ways to extract out a commercial offering, whilst engaging in (free) open source labour? Sorry for the cynicism, but offering only $2500 (+things of variable value) sounds like you are trying to target desperate people to take advantage of almost. Ie. If an open source project grew a commercial element, it's going to be worth a bunch more than that. Please, I stand waiting to be corrected. Thanks.
- danicgross 9y agoHi laythea! That is an incredibly cynical take. Why are you so default cynical? Anyway, I’ll share my hidden motivations with you, if you like. It’s twofold: 1. I am intellectually curious about AI research. I enjoy talking to researchers. I do it in my spare time. For fun. I would like to do more of that. 2. I was accepted by YC when I was an uncredentialed 18 year old. It changed my life. I’ve since been fascinated by systems that find promising outsiders and bring them into the fold. YC does a great job at this for companies. I’m wondering if it would be useful to do it for research ideas as well. Lastly, I completely disagree that GPU training time is “of variable value”. It’s a big deal for many researchers.
- laythea 9y agoHi, thanks for your reply. Yes, sorry for sounding a bit cynical, I will take a look at what you do in more detail, but the sponsors of this venture surely want some return? My, as yet uneducated, layman outsiders guess as to what that return may be would be some IP, derived from these projects? Kind of like growing a tree for birds to lay eggs in and then shaking it to see what drops out. No offense intended. Cheers
- danicgross 9y agoIt’s a non profit! The IP you develop is yours!
- 9y ago
- krzeski 9y agoSo much for "in minutes"... "Applications take days to complete."
- mv4 9y agoCloud credits are easy to get. But you are giving away cash - what's the catch?
- danicgross 9y agoSigh.
- mv4 9y agoYes, it's frustrating - but if the predominant response is doubt and confusion, you guys clearly didn't think this all the way through. AI tech is now easy and accessible, and you need to make a very good case why an AI startup would "need" you - along with the platforms you're promoting.
- ekta_prashnani 9y agoI am one of the grant recipients. In my experience, there really isn't any catch to the sponsors giving away cash. It's simply to help further the ongoing research and it has been one of the easiest and fastest ways for me to get resources for my own research. Also, it has helped me connect with other grant recipients who might be able to offer advice, IF I need it.
- pycassa 9y agoJust read a twitter thread about how American culture is negative about everything. https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/981341257124397056 https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/981341257124397056 And then I found comments on this. Most of them are very cynical. These are guys who want to give money with no strings attached and its so hard for everyone to even believe something like this is even possible. I'm more interested in reading thoughts of people who were previously part of aigrant. Please don't get discouraged, there are several people like me for whom the money and the other credits are very valuable. These are definitely not nothing. Even though you can get cloud credits in other ways, they are not that straight forward. From what I see they are offering, everything is valuable. "I was accepted by YC when I was an uncredentialed 18 year old. It changed my life. I’ve since been fascinated by systems that find promising outsiders and bring them into the fold. YC does a great job at this for companies. I’m wondering if it would be useful to do it for research ideas as well." What I would like to know is, from the previous batches, how many do you guys think that fit this category. I applied last time, but I don't know if I would apply now, mostly time constraints.
- jordipons 9y agoI am one of the AI grant fellows, and I have to say that they never asked me any thing in return - just our opinion and some help regarding the AI grant. I personally think the AI grant is particularly interesting to get some extra visibility (not only the money)! BTW: our project is already available out there! :) https://datasets.freesound.org/ https://datasets.freesound.org/
- restya 9y agoIs it possible to apply for an open source project ( http://restya.com/board http://restya.com/board ) that is already live? We're interested to create AI based plugins for Restyaboard... not individual, but as a team. Is that possible?
- greenburg 9y agoDani, thanks for doing this and I like your idea of building an online community working on interesting side projects in AI. I would apply this batch and recommend it to other researchers who are working on cool stuff to apply now, "only" if you take our feedback, which you asked for, into consideration which are: 1-Delete the personality questionnaire and the brain teaser. Keep it simple as you promised above "in minutes". Seems like everyone here hates it, including me. 2-Either in the application process or on your website, state how would you protect my idea. Ideas become things. In the application, I will give you my full idea that I am working on. You might get inspired by it, and build it your own. If you are really trying to attract top-notch side project, you need to do this.