4 ms·

I'm just curious - why do I primarily see Chinese researchers publishing deep learning stuff on arXiv? Is it subsidized over there? Just look at the publication

by kaivi 8y ago

I'm just curious - why do I primarily see Chinese researchers publishing deep learning stuff on arXiv? Is it subsidized over there? Just look at the publications linked in this thread so far, 2/3 are from Beijing.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
logancg 8y ago
There are a lot of talented ML researchers in China. This is a product of (a) the government and major companies (i.e. BAT) investing heavily in fundamental ML research (b) the population size (c) a long tradition of STEM-focused education in China. So, it's not surprising that would be the case. The interesting questions are if China is uniquely focused on deep learning over other ML techniques, and Chinese research compares in terms of quality. Anecdotally (speaking as a researcher in the field) papers from Chinese institutions seem disproportionately focused on deep learning (whereas, for example, the UK does great work in Bayesian ML and the US does disproprotionately well in NLP). I'm not a deep learning researcher so I can't judge the technical merit, but I was just at NeurIPS in Montreal, and I saw about equal representation of Chinese institutions as South Korean ones. South Korea, with ~1/25 the population, punches way above its weight per capita.
- taneq 8y ago
  I thought the question was more "why arXiv and not other journals" in which case maybe 'prestigious' Western journal publications just aren't valued as much in China?
  - nl 8y ago
    Almost all ML research is published on arXiv. In ML (as in most of Comp Sci) conference proceedings (NeurIPS, ICML etc) are where the prestige publishing is.
  - lettergram 8y ago
    Perhaps their papers are disproportionately not accepted to conferences so we see many more on arXiv
  - HuShifang 8y ago
    I can't speak specifically to this topical domain, but generally speaking (assuming the research topic isn't politically sensitive) there are professional incentives to do transnational work -- whether it's publishing in Anglophone journals, organizing international conferences, etc. So probably, it's not that foreign journals are valued less. (Probably, in fact, the contrary.)
kowdermeister 8y ago
Yes, it's part of their strategy. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/12/11/china-become-worlds-ai-superpower-europe-hit-brain-drain/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/12/11/china-beco... https://multimedia.scmp.com/news/china/article/2166148/china-2025-artificial-intelligence/index.html https://multimedia.scmp.com/news/china/article/2166148/china... https://www.cfr.org/blog/chinas-artificial-intelligence-strategy-poses-credible-threat-us-tech-leadership https://www.cfr.org/blog/chinas-artificial-intelligence-stra...
lern_too_spel 8y ago
Most deep learning researchers post to arXiv, not just Chinese. With so many seemingly obvious ideas in deep learning, it's an easy way to lay claim to an idea and be first. Since everyone knows that preprints and revisions will be on arxXiv, that's where people search for deep learning papers by default, even if the paper is also published elsewhere.

by kaivi 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

logancg 8y ago

There are a lot of talented ML researchers in China. This is a product of (a) the government and major companies (i.e. BAT) investing heavily in fundamental ML research (b) the population size (c) a long tradition of STEM-focused education in China. So, it's not surprising that would be the case. The interesting questions are if China is uniquely focused on deep learning over other ML techniques, and Chinese research compares in terms of quality. Anecdotally (speaking as a researcher in the field) papers from Chinese institutions seem disproportionately focused on deep learning (whereas, for example, the UK does great work in Bayesian ML and the US does disproprotionately well in NLP). I'm not a deep learning researcher so I can't judge the technical merit, but I was just at NeurIPS in Montreal, and I saw about equal representation of Chinese institutions as South Korean ones. South Korea, with ~1/25 the population, punches way above its weight per capita.

taneq 8y ago
I thought the question was more "why arXiv and not other journals" in which case maybe 'prestigious' Western journal publications just aren't valued as much in China?
- nl 8y ago
  Almost all ML research is published on arXiv. In ML (as in most of Comp Sci) conference proceedings (NeurIPS, ICML etc) are where the prestige publishing is.
- lettergram 8y ago
  Perhaps their papers are disproportionately not accepted to conferences so we see many more on arXiv
- HuShifang 8y ago
  I can't speak specifically to this topical domain, but generally speaking (assuming the research topic isn't politically sensitive) there are professional incentives to do transnational work -- whether it's publishing in Anglophone journals, organizing international conferences, etc. So probably, it's not that foreign journals are valued less. (Probably, in fact, the contrary.)

kowdermeister 8y ago

Yes, it's part of their strategy. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/12/11/china-become-worlds-ai-superpower-europe-hit-brain-drain/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/12/11/china-beco... https://multimedia.scmp.com/news/china/article/2166148/china-2025-artificial-intelligence/index.html https://multimedia.scmp.com/news/china/article/2166148/china... https://www.cfr.org/blog/chinas-artificial-intelligence-strategy-poses-credible-threat-us-tech-leadership https://www.cfr.org/blog/chinas-artificial-intelligence-stra...

lern_too_spel 8y ago

Most deep learning researchers post to arXiv, not just Chinese. With so many seemingly obvious ideas in deep learning, it's an easy way to lay claim to an idea and be first. Since everyone knows that preprints and revisions will be on arxXiv, that's where people search for deep learning papers by default, even if the paper is also published elsewhere.