12 ms·

What I struggle to understand is how could esteemed AI researchers like LeCun and many others work for such a company to give it even more powers and edge? How

by x3tm 8y ago

What I struggle to understand is how could esteemed AI researchers like LeCun and many others work for such a company to give it even more powers and edge? How can they justify this as scientists? The huge influx of money into research (here AI, but could be anything in the future) combined with the disfunctions of academia is very troubling.

modzu 8y ago
im not justifying it, but its easier to do research at a place like FB than in a university these days
- stevenicr 8y ago
  This scares me. It's easier because.. FB has access to millions of people that universities do not? Because fbook can manipulate the minds, emotions and money and politics of highly targeted groups without anyone knowing and the universities could never do that, or would never do that? Is it because fbook has less ethics / laws / rules in place? Because universities need to answer to the community they are in and have the fear of pitchforks and loss of funding / donors / non-monopoly and need to think of their future and reputation and fbook does not? What other reasons could there be? This is something that indeed, unfortunately, we probably should have had regulators talking about long ago.
  - vageli 8y ago
    > This scares me. > It's easier because.. FB has access to millions of people that universities do not? Because fbook can manipulate the minds, emotions and money and politics of highly targeted groups without anyone knowing and the universities could never do that, or would never do that? > Is it because fbook has less ethics / laws / rules in place? Because universities need to answer to the community they are in and have the fear of pitchforks and loss of funding / donors / non-monopoly and need to think of their future and reputation and fbook does not? > What other reasons could there be? Money. Lots and lots of money, a scarce resource at most universities.
- x3tm 8y ago
  Well this is true only if your research is well aligned with fb's interests. Not the case in universitiew where academic freedom, albeit not perfect, still exists to a large extent.
spamizbad 8y ago
We need an Operation Paperclip for Facebook talent.
- vibrolax 8y ago
  Well we eventually got two things out of that operation....ICBM's and the Saturn V.
zozbot123 8y ago
What's the alternative? Google? Baidu?
- x3tm 8y ago
  How about universities?
  - throwaway991133 8y ago
    Ha! Let me explain to you how the sausage is made at [American] universities. You're a fresh-faced researcher with a brand new PhD and you got super, super lucky and landed one of the very few tenure-track positions at a research university available each year. On your first day of orientation, your department head hands you a piece of paper with a number written on it. The number varies every year based on the university and the economy. Maybe this year it's $500,000, maybe a few years from now it's $1M. That number is how much money in research grants you need to bring in to the university over the next 6 years. If you bring that money in, congratulations, you get tenure; now you get a chance to work on whatever interests you for the rest of your life. But if you fall short of that goal, you're denied tenue; GTFO. You might think being a really good teacher will save you; it won't. You might think that volunteering for some annoying university committee will save you; it won't. You may think writing some really impactful papers (that nevertheless fail to bring in research grant money) will save you; it won't, unless you're really, really, really close to your monetary goal. So how do you get across the hump? In your first year or two, you think that ethical projects can totally work for you. You bring in a $10K grant here, a $25K grant there. Then you realize you're far short of your goal. So you do what most successful professors do. You start taking DARPA money, DOD money, DOJ money, Amazon or Google or Facebook money. You start building (or facilitating the building of) technology that kills people, that selects people to kill, that monitors populations for trouble-makers or for people susceptible to advertising campaigns. Of course, those aren't the words used in your grant proposals, instead you keep it really abstract. But deep down, you know what your research is going toward.
    - x3tm 8y ago
      I know how academia works. Though being a theoretical particle physicist, I don't have to worry about the societal impact of my research and I can't be influenced by industry. You seem to be unhappy with your situation. And you also seem to suggest that the choice boils down to either work in a hypocritical (re ethics) environment in academia or be openly cynical about it and join facebook and the likes. Well. I think the world is bigger than this. And we always have choice. Be it academic prestige, good salaries, power, ethics, etc. There are plenty of small companies trying hard to make a positive impact in the world (not just with words like Zuck) and which would be happy to have you. But then the price to pay is your academic dream.
kristianov 8y ago
Dataset. AI is nothing without high-quality datasets: without ImageNet, there will not be deep learning.
- poslathian 8y ago
  Isn’t imagenet an academic dataset? Thank Stanford and Princeton, not FANG
  - kristianov 8y ago
    I mean researchers go into FANG to gain access to private, high quality datasets.
matz1 8y ago
Simple, not everyone share the same concern regarding privacy or those sjw stuff, moreover fb has vast amount of data and also funding, it's very suitable for AI research. Even if he refuse to work with fb, pretty sure a lot of other people will be happy to replace.
- x3tm 8y ago
  Science should be above this. Inspired by your comment, I'll make my point more graphically: Nazi camps were also suitable for medical and spychological testing. Nazi and even interned doctors did all sorts of experiments on prisoners. And if they refused to do so, pretty sure other people would have been happy to replace. Not everyone shared the same concerns regarding human life.
  - perfmode 8y ago
    They were able to do a lot of beneficial research because they didn’t have to deal with cumbersome regulations and roadblocks. And if they didn’t do it, someone else would have lined up to take advantage of the opportunities. Edit: If it isn’t clear, I am being sarcastic.
    - lm28469 8y ago
      It depends how you see things. imho some things are intrinsically wrong, doing them because "someone else would have lined up to take advantage of the opportunities" doesn't change the fact that it's wrong in the first place. Just the same way that if something wrong is done by a lot of people it doesn't make it right (smoking, drinking &c.).
      - balabaster 8y ago
        What if the alternative is to be shot yourself? Where do you morals stand then? Unfortunately our morals are easily swayed when the alternative choice is death.
        8y ago
smacktoward 8y ago
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." -- Upton Sinclair (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair)
- lumberjack 8y ago
  It is not just that. Some people in this field just have questionable ethics, unfortunately. Some are just childish and have this close minded ignorant macho attitude that though men, as they style themselves, should not care about ethics. Then there others who just don't care either way as long as they get paid to play with their toys.
  - aylmao 8y ago
    +1. I'm a foreigner from Mexico-- back there all engineering majors study ethics in school as part of the requirements. I studied abroad in the US, and was surprised at how not only there was no ethics requirement, but many engineering majors actually shunned anything having to do with the humanities in a very "us vs. them", "we do real work", "this is not important" manner. It's hard to measure what impact a couple of classes could have and it would certainly vary from person to person, but it would at least set the stage for conversation and be an acknowledgement to the importance of ethics in engineering.
    - stallmanite 8y ago
      To add an anecdote to the pile, I went to school in the US and had to pass an ethics in engineering course to complete degree requirements for Computer Science in the late 90s.
jrbuhl 8y ago
Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department
- sjcsjc 8y ago
  https://genius.com/Tom-lehrer-wernher-von-braun-lyrics https://genius.com/Tom-lehrer-wernher-von-braun-lyrics ... for the uninitiated
jcadam 8y ago
Facebook recruiters seem more aggressive lately, perhaps they're starting to actually have trouble attracting top talent?
- beager 8y ago
  Perhaps, but if you notice that anecdotally, it may be that you and your network and becoming more experienced and therefore more attractive to Facebook.
  - jcadam 8y ago
    Nope, I'm in my late thirties. They're so desperate they're approaching old losers like me.
pesenti 8y ago
I joined a year ago to lead the AI team (Yann is part of it but I am not answering for him here). It's a choice as I don't have to work any longer. Why am I there? - I believe Facebook's products are good for the world. They have had an extremely positive impact on my family in particular. - It is the one place where AI can have a really positive impact on the world. - It's is the most talented set of people I have ever worked with. Not just the AI team but every single person I meet there. - I believe in Zuck. Despite all the bashing, he is one of the most thoughtful and visionary leader I have worked for. This said I don't agree with everything that the company has done. But Facebook is a place were you are free to disagree openly and so far my team and I have always been able to do what we considered the right thing to do. [Edit: agreeing with the comments that I should have written "is one place" instead of "is the one place"]
- pul 8y ago
  Could you elaborate on each of those four points? How did you come to these conclusions?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- techelitism 8y ago
  Can we cut the pretense and just admit it’s about the fact that you’re showered with money and the high prestige? No judgement, I’d do it if I was an elite too.
- x3tm 8y ago
  Thanks for your clear reply. There's only one thing though from what you mentioned that is not vague or subjective: > It is the one place where AI can have a really positive impact on the world. Can you develop on this please? Why do you think a social network (however efficient it may be with e.g. targeted ads) will have a bigger impact on its members versus e.g. AI in healthcare? or finance? or education? which will have a truly global impact.
  - aylmao 8y ago
mtgx 8y ago
I feel the same way about Carmack. Such wasted potential that could've been so much better used at a company like SpaceX or even one like Epic Games or Valve.
techelitism 8y ago
It’s because they get a lot of money. It’s that simple. I don’t know if people know how much facebookers make because if they did they’d start to riot.

by x3tm 8y ago

modzu 8y ago

im not justifying it, but its easier to do research at a place like FB than in a university these days

stevenicr 8y ago
This scares me. It's easier because.. FB has access to millions of people that universities do not? Because fbook can manipulate the minds, emotions and money and politics of highly targeted groups without anyone knowing and the universities could never do that, or would never do that? Is it because fbook has less ethics / laws / rules in place? Because universities need to answer to the community they are in and have the fear of pitchforks and loss of funding / donors / non-monopoly and need to think of their future and reputation and fbook does not? What other reasons could there be? This is something that indeed, unfortunately, we probably should have had regulators talking about long ago.
- vageli 8y ago
  > This scares me. > It's easier because.. FB has access to millions of people that universities do not? Because fbook can manipulate the minds, emotions and money and politics of highly targeted groups without anyone knowing and the universities could never do that, or would never do that? > Is it because fbook has less ethics / laws / rules in place? Because universities need to answer to the community they are in and have the fear of pitchforks and loss of funding / donors / non-monopoly and need to think of their future and reputation and fbook does not? > What other reasons could there be? Money. Lots and lots of money, a scarce resource at most universities.
x3tm 8y ago
Well this is true only if your research is well aligned with fb's interests. Not the case in universitiew where academic freedom, albeit not perfect, still exists to a large extent.

spamizbad 8y ago

We need an Operation Paperclip for Facebook talent.

vibrolax 8y ago
Well we eventually got two things out of that operation....ICBM's and the Saturn V.

zozbot123 8y ago

What's the alternative? Google? Baidu?

x3tm 8y ago
How about universities?
- throwaway991133 8y ago
  Ha! Let me explain to you how the sausage is made at [American] universities. You're a fresh-faced researcher with a brand new PhD and you got super, super lucky and landed one of the very few tenure-track positions at a research university available each year. On your first day of orientation, your department head hands you a piece of paper with a number written on it. The number varies every year based on the university and the economy. Maybe this year it's $500,000, maybe a few years from now it's $1M. That number is how much money in research grants you need to bring in to the university over the next 6 years. If you bring that money in, congratulations, you get tenure; now you get a chance to work on whatever interests you for the rest of your life. But if you fall short of that goal, you're denied tenue; GTFO. You might think being a really good teacher will save you; it won't. You might think that volunteering for some annoying university committee will save you; it won't. You may think writing some really impactful papers (that nevertheless fail to bring in research grant money) will save you; it won't, unless you're really, really, really close to your monetary goal. So how do you get across the hump? In your first year or two, you think that ethical projects can totally work for you. You bring in a $10K grant here, a $25K grant there. Then you realize you're far short of your goal. So you do what most successful professors do. You start taking DARPA money, DOD money, DOJ money, Amazon or Google or Facebook money. You start building (or facilitating the building of) technology that kills people, that selects people to kill, that monitors populations for trouble-makers or for people susceptible to advertising campaigns. Of course, those aren't the words used in your grant proposals, instead you keep it really abstract. But deep down, you know what your research is going toward.
  - x3tm 8y ago
    I know how academia works. Though being a theoretical particle physicist, I don't have to worry about the societal impact of my research and I can't be influenced by industry. You seem to be unhappy with your situation. And you also seem to suggest that the choice boils down to either work in a hypocritical (re ethics) environment in academia or be openly cynical about it and join facebook and the likes. Well. I think the world is bigger than this. And we always have choice. Be it academic prestige, good salaries, power, ethics, etc. There are plenty of small companies trying hard to make a positive impact in the world (not just with words like Zuck) and which would be happy to have you. But then the price to pay is your academic dream.

kristianov 8y ago

Dataset. AI is nothing without high-quality datasets: without ImageNet, there will not be deep learning.

poslathian 8y ago
Isn’t imagenet an academic dataset? Thank Stanford and Princeton, not FANG
- kristianov 8y ago
  I mean researchers go into FANG to gain access to private, high quality datasets.

matz1 8y ago

Simple, not everyone share the same concern regarding privacy or those sjw stuff, moreover fb has vast amount of data and also funding, it's very suitable for AI research. Even if he refuse to work with fb, pretty sure a lot of other people will be happy to replace.

x3tm 8y ago
Science should be above this. Inspired by your comment, I'll make my point more graphically: Nazi camps were also suitable for medical and spychological testing. Nazi and even interned doctors did all sorts of experiments on prisoners. And if they refused to do so, pretty sure other people would have been happy to replace. Not everyone shared the same concerns regarding human life.
- perfmode 8y ago
  They were able to do a lot of beneficial research because they didn’t have to deal with cumbersome regulations and roadblocks. And if they didn’t do it, someone else would have lined up to take advantage of the opportunities. Edit: If it isn’t clear, I am being sarcastic.
  - lm28469 8y ago
    It depends how you see things. imho some things are intrinsically wrong, doing them because "someone else would have lined up to take advantage of the opportunities" doesn't change the fact that it's wrong in the first place. Just the same way that if something wrong is done by a lot of people it doesn't make it right (smoking, drinking &c.).
    - balabaster 8y ago
      What if the alternative is to be shot yourself? Where do you morals stand then? Unfortunately our morals are easily swayed when the alternative choice is death.
      - 8y ago

smacktoward 8y ago

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." -- Upton Sinclair (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair)

lumberjack 8y ago
It is not just that. Some people in this field just have questionable ethics, unfortunately. Some are just childish and have this close minded ignorant macho attitude that though men, as they style themselves, should not care about ethics. Then there others who just don't care either way as long as they get paid to play with their toys.
- aylmao 8y ago
  +1. I'm a foreigner from Mexico-- back there all engineering majors study ethics in school as part of the requirements. I studied abroad in the US, and was surprised at how not only there was no ethics requirement, but many engineering majors actually shunned anything having to do with the humanities in a very "us vs. them", "we do real work", "this is not important" manner. It's hard to measure what impact a couple of classes could have and it would certainly vary from person to person, but it would at least set the stage for conversation and be an acknowledgement to the importance of ethics in engineering.
  - stallmanite 8y ago
    To add an anecdote to the pile, I went to school in the US and had to pass an ethics in engineering course to complete degree requirements for Computer Science in the late 90s.

jrbuhl 8y ago

Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department

sjcsjc 8y ago
https://genius.com/Tom-lehrer-wernher-von-braun-lyrics https://genius.com/Tom-lehrer-wernher-von-braun-lyrics ... for the uninitiated

jcadam 8y ago

Facebook recruiters seem more aggressive lately, perhaps they're starting to actually have trouble attracting top talent?

beager 8y ago
Perhaps, but if you notice that anecdotally, it may be that you and your network and becoming more experienced and therefore more attractive to Facebook.
- jcadam 8y ago
  Nope, I'm in my late thirties. They're so desperate they're approaching old losers like me.

pesenti 8y ago

I joined a year ago to lead the AI team (Yann is part of it but I am not answering for him here). It's a choice as I don't have to work any longer. Why am I there? - I believe Facebook's products are good for the world. They have had an extremely positive impact on my family in particular. - It is the one place where AI can have a really positive impact on the world. - It's is the most talented set of people I have ever worked with. Not just the AI team but every single person I meet there. - I believe in Zuck. Despite all the bashing, he is one of the most thoughtful and visionary leader I have worked for. This said I don't agree with everything that the company has done. But Facebook is a place were you are free to disagree openly and so far my team and I have always been able to do what we considered the right thing to do. [Edit: agreeing with the comments that I should have written "is one place" instead of "is the one place"]

pul 8y ago
Could you elaborate on each of those four points? How did you come to these conclusions?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
techelitism 8y ago
Can we cut the pretense and just admit it’s about the fact that you’re showered with money and the high prestige? No judgement, I’d do it if I was an elite too.
x3tm 8y ago
Thanks for your clear reply. There's only one thing though from what you mentioned that is not vague or subjective: > It is the one place where AI can have a really positive impact on the world. Can you develop on this please? Why do you think a social network (however efficient it may be with e.g. targeted ads) will have a bigger impact on its members versus e.g. AI in healthcare? or finance? or education? which will have a truly global impact.
- aylmao 8y ago

mtgx 8y ago

I feel the same way about Carmack. Such wasted potential that could've been so much better used at a company like SpaceX or even one like Epic Games or Valve.

techelitism 8y ago

It’s because they get a lot of money. It’s that simple. I don’t know if people know how much facebookers make because if they did they’d start to riot.