7 ms·

I understand the call of money but I cannot help but feel very negatively towards academics doing this with facebook of all organisations. After recent events,

I understand the call of money but I cannot help but feel very negatively towards academics doing this with facebook of all organisations. After recent events, they cannot pretend not to know the impact and damage their work may have here. Excusing yourself with "I am just a researcher, I don't have anything to do with how my work is used" is just not good enough any more. I would categorically reject any collaborations with FB as an academic in ML.

yaseer 8y ago
Completely agree with this. I see Facebook as the least ethical, and least useful from a civilization standpoint of all the big tech firms. Google is driven by the same ad-clicking incentives, but the one-tricky pony has been developing other extremely societally useful tech, like self-driving cars and other moonshot projects. Apple and Microsoft sell products, they do not make users the product (on the whole). Together they pioneered computing revolutions, and I'm confident history will judge them for making a positive contribution (on the whole). Amazon is a leviathan whose societal value I find more difficult to classify, but I genuinely derive lots of value from their service personally. It's good for my lifestyle. Facebook on the other hand, is a waste of my time, mental energy and a drain on society. As an academic, how can you turn your mind to furthering its goals?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- visarga 8y ago
  That might be true, but don't confuse FAIR (their DL research lab) with FB. FAIR employs good people doing interesting and useful research. They promoted pytorch as a framework, and it is perhaps the best framework for non industrial applications. On a parallel line of thought, I prefer FB's React to Google's Angular. In both React and Pytorch I see the same elegant design. TensorFlow and Angular on the other part are unnecessarily complicated.
  - yaseer 8y ago
    I agree with the general principle, expressed fairly crudely, that - good, innovative things (React) can come out of bad places (Facebook, in my opinion). That's historically true of lots of research innovation though. War (generally accepted as bad thing!) has advanced technology and civilization repeatedly. At least the scientists aiding war (on average) had some awareness that killing people is clearly not a good thing, and at absolute best a necessary evil. Can the same be said of the people at Facebook? The culture of their management is to be in denial about how damaging their service is to the mental health of individuals and society.
  - dharlow 8y ago
    FAIR is part of FB. The reason why FB invests billions of dollars into FAIR is because it supports its business model and its democracy-wrecking product. FAIR researchers are complicit in the societal damage perpetrated by FB. They're cashing the (multi-million $) checks, and in exchange they work on making FB more powerful, by giving it better AI. When you talk to these guys (they're almost all guys), you realize they're fully aware of what they're doing, and in the back of their minds they know FB is evil. They just like the money too much. This is 100% about money trumping conscience. FAIR researchers may be millionaires, but they're ethically challenged. I wouldn't trade place with them. These people disgust me.
    - eachro 8y ago
      The $$ they can get from anywhere else in industry given how hot research level ML experience is (and how scarce this talent is). I imagine the appeal of FAIR is much more about the academic freedom. But sure the $$ doesnt hurt.
      - electricslpnsld 8y ago
        > given how hot research level ML experience is Interestingly the head of the Pittsburgh lab here isn't even an ML researcher -- she is primarily known for her motion capture work and for running Disney Research.
    - 8y ago
- sharcerer 8y ago
  History will also judge Alphabet with a positive mindset (T&C apply!). Google did to web what Apple,MS did to computing. Google files patents but doesn't extract royalty from it unlike MS. I think next 10 years will be really crucial to Alphabet( not talking about Google here). The work Calico, Verily,Loon, Dandelion Energy are doing takes time to create impact. I think Google, Calico,Verily are going to make considerable contributions to healthcare.
- schrep 8y ago
  Our products aren't perfect, and we understand that we have a lot of work to do. However, the fundamental purpose of our products is to allow people to efficiently communicate with each other. Hard for me to square that with "drain on society." I have many friends who, via Facebook, found a connection that was life changing: from finding a job, a spouse, to a community to deal with the loss of a loved one or support after being diagnosed with a terminal illness. One of the things that draws AI researchers to come work at Facebook is the opportunity to see their work make a positive impact on billions of people around the world. The research done by FAIR is helping us do things like deliver billions of translations a day, provide automatic photo captions for people who are visually impaired, and help bring blood donors and people in need together. It also helps us spot when someone is expressing thoughts about self-harm so we can alert first responders. But we also believe there's even more we can do to help bring the world closer together, to give people a voice, and to open up new opportunities for everyone. AI is a key part of that and we believe pretty deeply in the power of open research to help not just us but the whole industry.
  - ychujo 8y ago
    Is this what you tell yourself in order to sleep at night? From the perspective of an external observer, this talk of "making the world more open and connected (and making billions in the process)" seems shockingly disconnected from the reality of the damage that FB is causing in America and in the world. You talk about impact. There's no doubt FB is making a big impact. Unfortunately, it's overwhelmingly destructive impact. As someone in position to change that, it would be great for you not to dismiss out of hand the valid concerns of the people in this thread. Personally, it's because of replies like this (in particular zuck's attitude) that I have zero confidence in FB's potential to fix its products in the future. Bye bye democracy I guess. One day you may be held responsible for your impact on the world. I hope the talk about making the world a better place will work out then.
  - shmageggy 8y ago
    > The research done by FAIR is helping us do things like deliver billions of translations a day, etc... All for the purpose of increasing buy-in to an increasingly Orwellian digital surveillance regime. > But we also believe there's even more we can do to help bring the world closer together... What brings people closer together is real human interaction and connection. Face to face communication with visible emotion. Vulnerability. FB's video chat is the only thing serving that interest, but that's better served elsewhere with less tracking. Posts that broadcast one-way to an invisible audience are inhuman. Filter bubbles are toxic. Widespread use of FB is cancerous on the social fabric of society.
- rhaps0dy 8y ago
  Even if Facebook were completely evil, why not take their money? They will benefit from your research just as much even if you don't take it, because you're publishing it. Are you concerned that Facebook is telling the scientists what to work on?
yulaow 8y ago
Honestly at this point it is also ethically "controverse" to work for facebook in any position. Obviously, in my personal opinion and I can understand that a lot of people don't care about it
- ahartmetz 8y ago
  Heck, you could even go as far as saying that Facebook is ethically "challenged".
  - windows_tips 8y ago
    I think you can go even farther, to, "intentionally malicious". Mark hasn't taken back his comments about his users being "dumb fucks" for "trust[ing]" him, as far as I know, although he has apparently said that he regrets saying it[0]. [0] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/09/20/the-face-of-facebook https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/09/20/the-face-of-fa... Source: research and I've asked FB myself
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - throwaway37585 8y ago
      > he has apparently said that he regrets saying it What's the difference between this and taking it back?
      - windows_tips 8y ago
        One could still think it, but regret that they said it aloud/sent it as a text message, such that others heard/read it.
mikert5671 8y ago
FB and Google are the only ones pushing the industry forward. The huge amount of data and computing power is what brings these researchers, its not all about money. In the long run the scientific advancements from these companies is a much higher positive than the negatives they have in the present.
- naturalgradient 8y ago
  Any researcher in this area worth their salt can easily get cloud credit grants and collaborations from Google, Microsoft, Amazon. I pose if you go to Facebook, it's very much about money.
  - mikert5671 8y ago
    But can they get the huge volumes of data they have tagged out? The real time pipelines and internal tools? The community of people they will be working with?
    - 394549 8y ago
      >>> FB and Google are the only ones pushing the industry forward. The huge amount of data and computing power is what brings these researchers, its not all about money. In the long run the scientific advancements from these companies is a much higher positive than the negatives they have in the present. > But can they get the huge volumes of data they have tagged out? The real time pipelines and internal tools? The community of people they will be working with? It's highly problematic when a researcher pushes ethics aside in order to gain access to data and chase "long run ... scientific advancements."
    - gaius 8y ago
      the huge volumes of data they have See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree
  - hackinthebochs 8y ago
    What actions by Facebook do you see as particularly heinous above what's done at Google?
tsieling 8y ago
Well said, and totally agree. They've had too many whoopsie moments and seem entrenched in not learning or changing what is fundamentally broken in their management and business model. They have no legitimate place in research or academia.
taneq 8y ago
It's a bit of a poisoned grail, though. On the one hand, you're selling your soul. On the other hand, they have data beyond your wildest dreams and you can use it all for anything as long as it might make money. Would you take that offer? Would I? Probably not. But I can see the appeal, and plenty of people wouldn't hesitate.
- gaius 8y ago
  But I can see the appeal, and plenty of people wouldn't hesitate. It will keep happening until these companies are a black mark on your CV, like say a tobacco company might be. Will people be so eager if it means they will be shunned by the wider research and engineering communities?
mliker 8y ago
Fb's research in computer vision has produced works like training a neutral net on large datasets in 1 hour, instance segmentation neural nets, and many more, and made the code and research public with nonrestrictive licenses. These are pushing the state of art! Check out the work yourself and then come back and criticize these scientists if you feel that their work is a net negative on the world.
- xd2024 8y ago
  wait, one hour? I thought it took two hours to train on a large dataset
- yaseer 8y ago
  Oh I am sure they add value. The question as you so rightly point out is whether there is a net value added. If we took their AI contributions and JS frameworks on one side of the equation, do you really think it balances the other side of the equation? On that right side lies encouraging general disinformation leading to broken elections and even aiding genocide. Academic studies on happiness show using Facebook and Instagram correlates with poor mental health; that research has been replicated. What product actively damages those that consume it? Facebook is the digital equivalent of the Tobacco industry; good business that's bad for people.

yaseer 8y ago

Completely agree with this. I see Facebook as the least ethical, and least useful from a civilization standpoint of all the big tech firms. Google is driven by the same ad-clicking incentives, but the one-tricky pony has been developing other extremely societally useful tech, like self-driving cars and other moonshot projects. Apple and Microsoft sell products, they do not make users the product (on the whole). Together they pioneered computing revolutions, and I'm confident history will judge them for making a positive contribution (on the whole). Amazon is a leviathan whose societal value I find more difficult to classify, but I genuinely derive lots of value from their service personally. It's good for my lifestyle. Facebook on the other hand, is a waste of my time, mental energy and a drain on society. As an academic, how can you turn your mind to furthering its goals?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
visarga 8y ago
That might be true, but don't confuse FAIR (their DL research lab) with FB. FAIR employs good people doing interesting and useful research. They promoted pytorch as a framework, and it is perhaps the best framework for non industrial applications. On a parallel line of thought, I prefer FB's React to Google's Angular. In both React and Pytorch I see the same elegant design. TensorFlow and Angular on the other part are unnecessarily complicated.
- yaseer 8y ago
  I agree with the general principle, expressed fairly crudely, that - good, innovative things (React) can come out of bad places (Facebook, in my opinion). That's historically true of lots of research innovation though. War (generally accepted as bad thing!) has advanced technology and civilization repeatedly. At least the scientists aiding war (on average) had some awareness that killing people is clearly not a good thing, and at absolute best a necessary evil. Can the same be said of the people at Facebook? The culture of their management is to be in denial about how damaging their service is to the mental health of individuals and society.
- dharlow 8y ago
  FAIR is part of FB. The reason why FB invests billions of dollars into FAIR is because it supports its business model and its democracy-wrecking product. FAIR researchers are complicit in the societal damage perpetrated by FB. They're cashing the (multi-million $) checks, and in exchange they work on making FB more powerful, by giving it better AI. When you talk to these guys (they're almost all guys), you realize they're fully aware of what they're doing, and in the back of their minds they know FB is evil. They just like the money too much. This is 100% about money trumping conscience. FAIR researchers may be millionaires, but they're ethically challenged. I wouldn't trade place with them. These people disgust me.
  - eachro 8y ago
    The $$ they can get from anywhere else in industry given how hot research level ML experience is (and how scarce this talent is). I imagine the appeal of FAIR is much more about the academic freedom. But sure the $$ doesnt hurt.
    - electricslpnsld 8y ago
      > given how hot research level ML experience is Interestingly the head of the Pittsburgh lab here isn't even an ML researcher -- she is primarily known for her motion capture work and for running Disney Research.
  - 8y ago
sharcerer 8y ago
History will also judge Alphabet with a positive mindset (T&C apply!). Google did to web what Apple,MS did to computing. Google files patents but doesn't extract royalty from it unlike MS. I think next 10 years will be really crucial to Alphabet( not talking about Google here). The work Calico, Verily,Loon, Dandelion Energy are doing takes time to create impact. I think Google, Calico,Verily are going to make considerable contributions to healthcare.
schrep 8y ago
Our products aren't perfect, and we understand that we have a lot of work to do. However, the fundamental purpose of our products is to allow people to efficiently communicate with each other. Hard for me to square that with "drain on society." I have many friends who, via Facebook, found a connection that was life changing: from finding a job, a spouse, to a community to deal with the loss of a loved one or support after being diagnosed with a terminal illness. One of the things that draws AI researchers to come work at Facebook is the opportunity to see their work make a positive impact on billions of people around the world. The research done by FAIR is helping us do things like deliver billions of translations a day, provide automatic photo captions for people who are visually impaired, and help bring blood donors and people in need together. It also helps us spot when someone is expressing thoughts about self-harm so we can alert first responders. But we also believe there's even more we can do to help bring the world closer together, to give people a voice, and to open up new opportunities for everyone. AI is a key part of that and we believe pretty deeply in the power of open research to help not just us but the whole industry.
- ychujo 8y ago
  Is this what you tell yourself in order to sleep at night? From the perspective of an external observer, this talk of "making the world more open and connected (and making billions in the process)" seems shockingly disconnected from the reality of the damage that FB is causing in America and in the world. You talk about impact. There's no doubt FB is making a big impact. Unfortunately, it's overwhelmingly destructive impact. As someone in position to change that, it would be great for you not to dismiss out of hand the valid concerns of the people in this thread. Personally, it's because of replies like this (in particular zuck's attitude) that I have zero confidence in FB's potential to fix its products in the future. Bye bye democracy I guess. One day you may be held responsible for your impact on the world. I hope the talk about making the world a better place will work out then.
- shmageggy 8y ago
  > The research done by FAIR is helping us do things like deliver billions of translations a day, etc... All for the purpose of increasing buy-in to an increasingly Orwellian digital surveillance regime. > But we also believe there's even more we can do to help bring the world closer together... What brings people closer together is real human interaction and connection. Face to face communication with visible emotion. Vulnerability. FB's video chat is the only thing serving that interest, but that's better served elsewhere with less tracking. Posts that broadcast one-way to an invisible audience are inhuman. Filter bubbles are toxic. Widespread use of FB is cancerous on the social fabric of society.
rhaps0dy 8y ago
Even if Facebook were completely evil, why not take their money? They will benefit from your research just as much even if you don't take it, because you're publishing it. Are you concerned that Facebook is telling the scientists what to work on?

yulaow 8y ago

Honestly at this point it is also ethically "controverse" to work for facebook in any position. Obviously, in my personal opinion and I can understand that a lot of people don't care about it

ahartmetz 8y ago
Heck, you could even go as far as saying that Facebook is ethically "challenged".
- windows_tips 8y ago
  I think you can go even farther, to, "intentionally malicious". Mark hasn't taken back his comments about his users being "dumb fucks" for "trust[ing]" him, as far as I know, although he has apparently said that he regrets saying it[0]. [0] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/09/20/the-face-of-facebook https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/09/20/the-face-of-fa... Source: research and I've asked FB myself
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - throwaway37585 8y ago
    > he has apparently said that he regrets saying it What's the difference between this and taking it back?
    - windows_tips 8y ago
      One could still think it, but regret that they said it aloud/sent it as a text message, such that others heard/read it.

mikert5671 8y ago

FB and Google are the only ones pushing the industry forward. The huge amount of data and computing power is what brings these researchers, its not all about money. In the long run the scientific advancements from these companies is a much higher positive than the negatives they have in the present.

naturalgradient 8y ago
Any researcher in this area worth their salt can easily get cloud credit grants and collaborations from Google, Microsoft, Amazon. I pose if you go to Facebook, it's very much about money.
- mikert5671 8y ago
  But can they get the huge volumes of data they have tagged out? The real time pipelines and internal tools? The community of people they will be working with?
  - 394549 8y ago
    >>> FB and Google are the only ones pushing the industry forward. The huge amount of data and computing power is what brings these researchers, its not all about money. In the long run the scientific advancements from these companies is a much higher positive than the negatives they have in the present. > But can they get the huge volumes of data they have tagged out? The real time pipelines and internal tools? The community of people they will be working with? It's highly problematic when a researcher pushes ethics aside in order to gain access to data and chase "long run ... scientific advancements."
  - gaius 8y ago
    the huge volumes of data they have See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree
- hackinthebochs 8y ago
  What actions by Facebook do you see as particularly heinous above what's done at Google?

tsieling 8y ago

Well said, and totally agree. They've had too many whoopsie moments and seem entrenched in not learning or changing what is fundamentally broken in their management and business model. They have no legitimate place in research or academia.

taneq 8y ago

It's a bit of a poisoned grail, though. On the one hand, you're selling your soul. On the other hand, they have data beyond your wildest dreams and you can use it all for anything as long as it might make money. Would you take that offer? Would I? Probably not. But I can see the appeal, and plenty of people wouldn't hesitate.

gaius 8y ago
But I can see the appeal, and plenty of people wouldn't hesitate. It will keep happening until these companies are a black mark on your CV, like say a tobacco company might be. Will people be so eager if it means they will be shunned by the wider research and engineering communities?

mliker 8y ago

Fb's research in computer vision has produced works like training a neutral net on large datasets in 1 hour, instance segmentation neural nets, and many more, and made the code and research public with nonrestrictive licenses. These are pushing the state of art! Check out the work yourself and then come back and criticize these scientists if you feel that their work is a net negative on the world.

xd2024 8y ago
wait, one hour? I thought it took two hours to train on a large dataset
yaseer 8y ago
Oh I am sure they add value. The question as you so rightly point out is whether there is a net value added. If we took their AI contributions and JS frameworks on one side of the equation, do you really think it balances the other side of the equation? On that right side lies encouraging general disinformation leading to broken elections and even aiding genocide. Academic studies on happiness show using Facebook and Instagram correlates with poor mental health; that research has been replicated. What product actively damages those that consume it? Facebook is the digital equivalent of the Tobacco industry; good business that's bad for people.