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Applied Machine Learning Is a Meritocracy
- looneysquash 8y agoI thought meritocracy was a discredited concept.
- pilooch 8y agoWell, if it's Open Source / free software, as the ML research field is, then it is a meritocracy.
- josephg 8y agoI’m always confused by this. Isn’t merit exactly what we want to be hiring for? I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want people who are the best at getting the job done. Or in opensource, I don’t understand why you would want to care about any attribute of a contributor other than the quality of their contributions. Anything else seems like discrimination. And I acknowledge that we often don’t do a good job of this; but surely that doesn’t mean we want to move away from merit based decisions.
- Novashi 8y agoYou can get your job done well but still be toxic and cause harm in other ways.
- MyHypatia 8y agoMy reading of the parent comment is that it is acknowledging that few decisions are purely merit based. People making hiring decisions have incomplete information and often rely on nebulous impressions and feelings of the candidate. People also tend to like and feel more comfortable with other people who "get" them, and have similar backgrounds/characteristics. I do not think the comment is advocating against hiring the best nor advocating for making less merit based decisions.
- josephg 8y agoYeah; I guess there are two questions: 1. How meritocratic are the decisions we make today? 2. Do we want more meritocracy, or less? I think there's specific ways we fail to make meritocratic decisions (credentialism, "culture fit", big company politics). But in my experience these things are the exception, not the rule. We don't start by trying to figure out if someone is a good culture fit, then assess their technical skills afterwards. We assess technical skills, then if we like what we see we check culture fit. I don't know about the GGP post, but I've certainly talked to people who claim to reject (2) - saying that the whole idea of meritocracy is flawed. But I'm always confused by that argument. Would you accept a rubbish pull request in a personal project? Would you hire someone with no technical skills into a technical role in your company? If the answer is no, then you're on team meritocracy-is-good.
- zimpenfish 8y ago> 1. How meritocratic are the decisions we make today? "Not very" based on my experiences. > 2. Do we want more meritocracy, or less? Ideally you want more meritocracy -but- that relies on a level playing field which is much, much, much harder to implement and would involve people paying taxes, etc. > Would you accept a rubbish pull request in a personal project? Honestly, I might, if it was something I was never going to get around to and it scratched >50% of an itch. Or if I could see it had potential for later work. Or if it was from someone I wanted to have contact with. > Would you hire someone with no technical skills into a technical role in your company? If you add "relevant" after "no", you'd be surprised how often this happens.
- meheleventyone 8y agoYou might find this interesting from the author that coined the term meritocracy. In particular addressing point 2. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment "It is good sense to appoint individual people to jobs on their merit. It is the opposite when those who are judged to have merit of a particular kind harden into a new social class without room in it for others." I think you can see inklings of this in support for Trump, Brexit and distrust of elites the term for the new 'meritorious' social class. Further merit in a job should extend well beyond technical skills.
- baroffoos 8y agoI looked in to the criticism a few months ago. From what I could gather there are a few people who feel that previously mistreated people should now be given an advantage to make up for the past. There is also another group of people who don't disagree with trying to rate people on merit but disagree with the people who say we currently do that because the reality is everyone is biased and if you don't do well its probably not entirely that you lacked the merit.
- GorgeRonde 8y agoMeritocracy has been coined by the mediocres so as to have something to drape intp when they need to justify their (lack of) work. Often, things are named by those that do them the greatest injustices.
- tjpnz 8y agoFrom what I've seen a mediocre who feels the need to drape oneself would never speak such a word. They'd find other justifications for not getting that job or promotion.
- dijit 8y agoI understand why you would say that, but it's not an entirely discredited concept; except among a few people who seem to prefer identity politics. I don't mean that to be inflammatory at all by the way; but there are people in the world who believe the circumstances of their place in society plays a significant role in how you should weigh them and their contributions. So, I wouldn't jump to "discredited" just because there's one blog post from a surprisingly influential person. I would instead say "contested".
- skywhopper 8y agoIf you don't "mean to be inflammatory", then why do you open with an inflammatory statement, and then continue with intentionally inflammatory misrepresentations? It's clear that you do mean to be inflammatory.
- freedomben 8y agoI don't mean this question to be inflammatory, but what was inflammatory about his statement? Was it the term "identity politics?"
- commandlinefan 8y agoYikes - just mentioning that there are people with differing opinions is considered "inflammatory"?
- Izkata 8y ago> misrepresentations "Affirmative action" is the PC term for what he described, and is pretty broadly accepted...
- goldenkey 8y agoYou can't discredit it universally, that'd be like disproving God. More exactly, it is the psychological trait "Belief in a Just World" (BJW.) One doesn't have to look far in our actual civilization to see innocent victims, injustice, but that still doesn't penetrate the existential strata of the universe eventually righting all wrongs. Here's a good analysis of the psychological studies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ0lR23T7FA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ0lR23T7FA If you don't have time to watch the video, the most significant points are: 1) Believing in a Just World / Meritocracy, is an evolved emotional buffer to the chaos and reality of ever-present injustice. 2) BJW trait correlates with higher measures of happyness after traumatic events like natural disasters - and seems to be a trait that remains relatively static among persons regardless of the tradgedies they suffer or windfall they receive.
- ranchpredictor 8y agoI think what he meant by meritocracy is that the merits from doing projects hands on and having solid results, as opposed to the “scholastic” meritocracy which I had initially assumed he meant (and which may be confusing other readers too).
- fogetti 8y agoI would add that even some of the academic papers focus on the applied perspective of machine learning. Such examples can be found in papers issued by security research institutes/companies. And now that we have cloud computing to replicate/validate or even extend those research papers is really just the matter of determination even if the subject of the paper needs a whole cluster of distributed resources.
- thatfrenchguy 8y ago"Like the field of software development, the application of machine learning is a meritocracy. A meritocracy is a structure under which participants are valued based on their contributions or demonstrated achievement (merit)." So far we've figured out that software development clearly isn't a meritocracy.
- natalyarostova 8y agoAs someone who was never considered prestigious enough for my first field (finance) who switched and has been successful in big tech, I can vouch it is way better than fields like finance and law
- smacktoward 8y ago"More meritocratic than finance and law" is not exactly a high bar to clear.
- natalyarostova 8y agoMaybe not, nontheless it does, and I'm thankful for that.
- donaldknuth123 8y agoHeroin is safer than Fentanyl. Therefore I am thankful for heroin.
- dijit 8y agoI think people aren't super clear on what they expect from meritocracy, this leads to statements like yours. Speaking personally, I grew up in an incredibly deprived part of my nation, I have little in the way of formal education and I definitely do not have connections. However I have achieved incredible social mobility due to technology. Why? because there is _some_ level of meritocracy going on even if it's not entirely widespread through every single hiring manager or company and I have a deep unyielding passion for this field that drives me to continually educate myself which despite my poor connections and education is looked at favourably. I still think of meritocracy as a noble goal, and I feel that merit is certainly definable if that's the main issue (IE; points based on time spent contributing to open source and things like invitations to speaking engagements and the like). I genuinely do not buy the argument that having "merit" in other areas infers that you have license to be a toxic asshole; because at (least in my mind) part of merit is being able to work with others. You don't have "merit" if you can't communicate effectively. In fact, there is an old saying about that: "Lots of MIPS but no I/O" which would make for a shitty CPU. Why would it make for a non-shitty developer?
- klyrs 8y agoOnce upon a time, I had an employer who was looking for a machine learning expert. I mean, we had a brilliant mathematician who was breaking serious ground in the field, but we needed an expert, apparently. We were having trouble drawing experts out of Silicon Valley, and our resident genius said "Hey, I satisfy all of the requirements for this job you've posted, and I'm already doing the work. Can you promote me from this crap software-dev role you stuck me in?" and the company's response was "No, it clearly states in the posting that you'd need a PhD in machine learning." We promptly lost our genius. If only TPTB knew that it was a meritocracy! In short: article's claims sound fishy; your lived experience may vary.
- josephg 8y agoI wonder how normal stories like this are. Was this just one bad manager in one company, which you remember because of how surprising it was? If so, maybe the core claim that software is a meritocracy holds. Or are stories like this common and everywhere?
- HarryHirsch 8y agoOr are stories like this common and everywhere? Very much so. Bad management is afraid of competence, because good performance cannot be argued away. I've seen this.
- ivanhoe 8y agoThey simply play safe. If you hire someone with PhD it's very unlikely that anyone will ever blame you for not taking that other random smart dude instead. The other way around you might get into a trouble for your choice. It's just how bureaucracy works, protecting your butt first, and everything else comes 2nd.
- el_dev_hell 8y agoI find the key factor the be company size. When I worked for a Fortune 500, credentials mattered. Possibly more than competence. I'm working for a much smaller company now and it's significantly closer to a meritocracy (or a "who will generate the most obvious value - even if it means working 90 hours per week" ocracy).
- dangero 8y agoAccess to datasets makes machine learning not a meritocracy. Saw a recent talk at an insuretech conference where the speaker lamented that China will leap ahead in AI research since they gather more data about users than anyone else. From that perspective, things like GDPR hinder EU researchers.
- jp8585 8y agoAs a machine learning freelancer, I can definitely understand the main argument of this article. When I started applying for contracts I always felt overwhelmed by the competition with math PhDs and other developers with brighter pedigrees. After closing my eyes to the competition, I started offering high quality communication, clear project specifications and complete honesty in terms of project feasibility, just as I would for any regular software project. After over 30 successful projects, I can't say I developed an Ai that can beat Starcraft, but I definitely brought a lot of value to all my clients. If you are passionate about machine learning and really like the grind, just go for it. Work finds a way
- tomrod 8y agoI'm one of those PhD types, and I would prefer to work with someone that has your skillset over someone who promises the moon and is solely excited about methodology. Based on your focus, I expect the projects you propose will have a measurable impact to the bottom line. And that is what builds reputation.
- yowlingcat 8y agoNot only is this the right attitude of what I'd want if I sought your services as a client, but this is heartening to hear as someone who's been thinking about getting more into this. Good on you!
- mac01021 8y agoHi! Would you mind characterizing briefly, or giving examples of, the successful projects you've taken on as a freelancer? I've thought before about trying to go that road, but the fact is, for almost every ml project opportunity I've come across, I would have had to say, "well, I can try out some stuff, and it might prove extremely valuable, but just as likely as not my POC will not perform well enough to use in production".
- plaidfuji 8y agoThe author clearly abides by the old adage, “Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them.”
- nixpulvis 8y agoIt's like a hamburger you see.
- touringmachine 8y agoI think the author is trying to lend support to people who feel excluded from the field due to a lack of credentials - great! You can, in fact, materially contribute and succeed without a PhD. Machine learning is a pretty big tent. Claiming that a profession is meritocratic, though, strikes me as a harmful framing. From my vantage I don't see a) what an objective notion of merit would be and b) that all people who have the capability to contribute is strictly equal to the number of good jobs that are currently available. I can definitely see when someone is already doing something useful well, but not if they might do that later or if the notion of useful will change.
- taeric 8y agoNo it isn't. Applied machine learning is an arms race of who has the data.
- robotresearcher 8y agoThere's a more interesting research race to figure out how to learn well with less data.
- taeric 8y agoIs there, though? Sure it would be great, but this feels more like the modern day alchemy.
- robotresearcher 8y agoYes there is an active literature on this. The extreme is called ‘one-shot learning’, which means what you’d guess.
- taeric 8y agoI know it is a thing. My question is if there is actual money/progress being made there. Hence my comparing it to alchemy. A widespread practice that generally did not produce any results in what they were attempting.
- olliej 8y agoThis is a repetition of “tech is a meritocracy” that ignores all of the previous reasons that demonstrate why it isn’t. There’s the nepotism portion (you need to get an interview first, before demonstrating merit, and nepotism bypasses a lot of that, and has the “they’re really good, just haven’t done much publicly/real world yet” backing). Ignores that merit itself is not objective - just doing X doesn’t give an objective measure for how much merit X should get, and there’s a long history of evidence for non-merit/skill based bias in how much merit is “earned”. Etc, etc
- bitL 8y agoAlmost nobody will talk to you about ML positions unless you have at least MS in ML or have a large portfolio of recent SOTA implementations under your hood. More often a PhD in ML is a requirement for entry-level ML jobs with ridiculously low salaries (seeking enthusiastic doctorate holders etc.). Meritocracy is an illusion unless you do your own company and start competing in hottest areas - there your exit might be ridiculously big.
- nixpulvis 8y agoIn this post I learned...
- hbogert 8y agoSays someone with a PhD. The advice in the text of just going into the field of ML blazing, is just weird. Every field is difficult, and you always have to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Personally I like to get the basics first, so yeah, I would read that required math first. However, this just boils down to people's preference, are you a bottom up learner, or not. Both ways have yielded success for many different people. So what is the text actually saying?
- RobLach 8y agomeritocracy is a structure under which participants are valued based on their contributions or demonstrated achievement (merit). Of course what is considered meritorious or an achievement is almost entirely dependent on the stakeholders in power above you and rarely has any purely objective measure, and any objective measures are almost always project dependent, making it all a highly political game to figure out what's important to whatever system is judging you.
- usgroup 8y agoMeritocracy all the things!
- hnuser355 8y agoMy question is if people are so good at math why are they doing machine learning, especially in practice? Some very good people investigating it theoretically. But the best young math professors that I’m personally friends with actually do have something of the “elitist math attitude” and will tell me things like they think the ML field belongs in the 1600s while they successfully work in their obscure area of algebra applied to mathematical physics or something
- norswap 8y agoMmkay. It's an applause light. What are we even suppose to think/say? https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/dLbkrPu5STNCBLRjr/applause-lights https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/dLbkrPu5STNCBLRjr/applaus...
- jshowa3 8y agoMerit is relative. For example, it shows a lot of merit that you successfully completed a PhD program in machine learning. However, for some reason, there seems to be this constant need to discount people with academic qualifications when most of what machine learning is comes directly from there. For example, just because you write cool, useful applications in machine learning, doesn't mean you are breaking ground in the field. It means you are using other peoples knowledge effectively and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that and his highly necessary. But don't confuse it with making contributions to the theory itself.
- xamuel 8y agoGreat point. If someone without credentials were truly doing ground-breaking stuff in the field, then getting a PhD should practically be a formality--schools should be banging the door down trying to recruit that person just for the status of having him or her (with full tuition waiver plus generous stipend being the bare starting ground).
- donaldknuth123 8y agoYes, a perfect Meritocracy. As long as you have a CS PhD from Stanford, MIT, Berkeley or CMU.
- mharrison 8y agoHave seen jobs where PhD is "required". (Many data scientists tend to push this view as they feel it protects them and gives them elevated status). Am also in the middle of training a group of future data scientists. The company is having issues hiring, and believe it is easier to train SME's in data science than the reverse.