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> You have expressed concern that corporations have ‘stolen’ talent from academia. Nobody is stealing anything. What they don’t realize is that the free market

> You have expressed concern that corporations have ‘stolen’ talent from academia. Nobody is stealing anything. What they don’t realize is that the free market will incentivize AI researchers to go to the private sector. It’s just simple economics.

webmaven 8y ago
If private industry are using inflated (in the short term) valuations and low tax rates to fund a talent war, but publicly funded educational institutions can't compete by increasing funding (through governments raising taxes or printing money), then the playing field isn't exactly level, is it?
- wskinner 8y ago
  Universities are nonprofits and pay little / no taxes.
  - webmaven 8y ago
    You missed the point: Raising government taxes increases the funding available for those institutions.
- GuiA 8y ago
  Publicly funded educational institutions can compete by reassigning some of their budget dedicated to sports and administrative roles to their researchers, for starters. For instance, the public US university I attended for grad school has an endowment of about $1B, and spent ~$150M on athletics in the past year. A post doc salary there is about $40k a year. Why would anyone take this over $200k a year (with lots of sweet perks) at eg Google? Because they are passionate about academic research (and potentially teaching), something that the university is very aware of and has no problem using to their advantage. Talking about level playing fields here seems disingenuous.
  - webmaven 8y ago
    > Publicly funded educational institutions can compete by reassigning some of their budget dedicated to sports Athletics programs are a huge driver of both alumni donations and student enrollment. Unfortunately. Not to mention licensing revenue from apparel and the like. > Because they are passionate about academic research (and potentially teaching), something that the university is very aware of and has no problem using to their advantage. This was more effective when the pay disparity was smaller.
carapace 8y ago
> they [Yoshua Bengio] don’t realize ... simple economics. Really?
- DSingularity 8y ago
  Why so incredulous? Is he some smart guy or something? (Sarcasm) I wish we would give people a chance before we dismiss people as dumb/.. .
- lyxsus1 8y ago
  Really. Because "they" are not "Yoshua Bengio". "They" are the journalists. In a link from this quote: "You have expressed concern that corporations have ‘stolen’ talent from academia. Is this still an issue?" https://www.nature.com/news/ai-talent-grab-sparks-excitement-and-concern-1.19821 https://www.nature.com/news/ai-talent-grab-sparks-excitement... I can't find a word "stolen" or anything similar being used at all. Seems like it was introduced by a journalist who wrote final article. And considering that, it's not hard to believe that this journalist may have some opinions on economics that are far from reality, that (probably unconsciously) triggered his word-twisting reflex.
  - carapace 8y ago
    And Yoshua Bengio replies, > "It’s continuing. ..." So he's not objecting to the phrasing, eh? The linked article has this: > The loss of expertise in academia concerns Yoshua Bengio, a computer scientist at the University of Montreal in Canada, which has also seen a surge in graduate-student applications. If industry-hired faculty members do retain university roles — as Hinton has at the University of Toronto and Ng has at Stanford University in California — they are usually only minor, says Bengio. So it's obvious he's not concerned about corporations literally "stealing" students and faculty somehow, like unmarked vans and burly men in black turtlenecks, eh? > And considering that, it's not hard to believe that this journalist may have some opinions on economics that are far from reality, that (probably unconsciously) triggered his word-twisting reflex. The word "stealing" is in quotes in TFA.
    - 8y ago
znode 8y ago
Nobody is stealing anything. What they don't realize is that the free market will incentivize people to liberate your valuables into the private sector when gains are better than the potential losses. It's just simple economics. Obviously facetious, but "stealing" is not some axiomatic boolean that never changes. It's judged differently by different societies depending on time, circumstances, and ideas. "Raiding" employees was common place. Now there are non-raid agreements. If non-raid agreements became very ubiquitous it would be considered stealing. Working employees 100 hour weeks with no overtime was commonplace. Now there are labor laws. It would be considered wage theft and exactly "stealing" if you did it today. "Simple economics" gives you no guidelines to judge any of these things "stealing" or "not stealing".
- GuiA 8y ago
  “Stealing”, in the USA in 2019, is a statutory offense punishable by law. Making a job offer to an academic that they accept isn’t a statutory offense punishable by law, and therefore is not stealing, no matter how much you play with semantics.
  - cuillevel3 8y ago
    Only when used in a legal sense. Stealing someones boyfriend for example is not a statutory offense punishable by law.
    - GuiA 8y ago
      Yes, and if an academic in an interview brought up boyfriend theft as a concern, it would be as ridiculous as this statement is. Don’t worry about the phenomenon itself, which is 2 entities acting legally and of their own volition. Worry about the systems at play that enable the phenomenon. Universities are clearly not compensating (whether in terms of raw dollars or benefits) AI researchers sufficiently. That’s what one should be concerned about, not “theft” of AI researchers.
UncleMeat 8y ago
Maybe that's a failure of the market? If the market is pushing people to do things that aren't what we want then "its the free market" isn't a defense.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

webmaven 8y ago

If private industry are using inflated (in the short term) valuations and low tax rates to fund a talent war, but publicly funded educational institutions can't compete by increasing funding (through governments raising taxes or printing money), then the playing field isn't exactly level, is it?

wskinner 8y ago
Universities are nonprofits and pay little / no taxes.
- webmaven 8y ago
  You missed the point: Raising government taxes increases the funding available for those institutions.
GuiA 8y ago
Publicly funded educational institutions can compete by reassigning some of their budget dedicated to sports and administrative roles to their researchers, for starters. For instance, the public US university I attended for grad school has an endowment of about $1B, and spent ~$150M on athletics in the past year. A post doc salary there is about $40k a year. Why would anyone take this over $200k a year (with lots of sweet perks) at eg Google? Because they are passionate about academic research (and potentially teaching), something that the university is very aware of and has no problem using to their advantage. Talking about level playing fields here seems disingenuous.
- webmaven 8y ago
  > Publicly funded educational institutions can compete by reassigning some of their budget dedicated to sports Athletics programs are a huge driver of both alumni donations and student enrollment. Unfortunately. Not to mention licensing revenue from apparel and the like. > Because they are passionate about academic research (and potentially teaching), something that the university is very aware of and has no problem using to their advantage. This was more effective when the pay disparity was smaller.

carapace 8y ago

> they [Yoshua Bengio] don’t realize ... simple economics. Really?

DSingularity 8y ago
Why so incredulous? Is he some smart guy or something? (Sarcasm) I wish we would give people a chance before we dismiss people as dumb/.. .
lyxsus1 8y ago
Really. Because "they" are not "Yoshua Bengio". "They" are the journalists. In a link from this quote: "You have expressed concern that corporations have ‘stolen’ talent from academia. Is this still an issue?" https://www.nature.com/news/ai-talent-grab-sparks-excitement-and-concern-1.19821 https://www.nature.com/news/ai-talent-grab-sparks-excitement... I can't find a word "stolen" or anything similar being used at all. Seems like it was introduced by a journalist who wrote final article. And considering that, it's not hard to believe that this journalist may have some opinions on economics that are far from reality, that (probably unconsciously) triggered his word-twisting reflex.
- carapace 8y ago
  And Yoshua Bengio replies, > "It’s continuing. ..." So he's not objecting to the phrasing, eh? The linked article has this: > The loss of expertise in academia concerns Yoshua Bengio, a computer scientist at the University of Montreal in Canada, which has also seen a surge in graduate-student applications. If industry-hired faculty members do retain university roles — as Hinton has at the University of Toronto and Ng has at Stanford University in California — they are usually only minor, says Bengio. So it's obvious he's not concerned about corporations literally "stealing" students and faculty somehow, like unmarked vans and burly men in black turtlenecks, eh? > And considering that, it's not hard to believe that this journalist may have some opinions on economics that are far from reality, that (probably unconsciously) triggered his word-twisting reflex. The word "stealing" is in quotes in TFA.
  - 8y ago

znode 8y ago

Nobody is stealing anything. What they don't realize is that the free market will incentivize people to liberate your valuables into the private sector when gains are better than the potential losses. It's just simple economics. Obviously facetious, but "stealing" is not some axiomatic boolean that never changes. It's judged differently by different societies depending on time, circumstances, and ideas. "Raiding" employees was common place. Now there are non-raid agreements. If non-raid agreements became very ubiquitous it would be considered stealing. Working employees 100 hour weeks with no overtime was commonplace. Now there are labor laws. It would be considered wage theft and exactly "stealing" if you did it today. "Simple economics" gives you no guidelines to judge any of these things "stealing" or "not stealing".

GuiA 8y ago
“Stealing”, in the USA in 2019, is a statutory offense punishable by law. Making a job offer to an academic that they accept isn’t a statutory offense punishable by law, and therefore is not stealing, no matter how much you play with semantics.
- cuillevel3 8y ago
  Only when used in a legal sense. Stealing someones boyfriend for example is not a statutory offense punishable by law.
  - GuiA 8y ago
    Yes, and if an academic in an interview brought up boyfriend theft as a concern, it would be as ridiculous as this statement is. Don’t worry about the phenomenon itself, which is 2 entities acting legally and of their own volition. Worry about the systems at play that enable the phenomenon. Universities are clearly not compensating (whether in terms of raw dollars or benefits) AI researchers sufficiently. That’s what one should be concerned about, not “theft” of AI researchers.

UncleMeat 8y ago

Maybe that's a failure of the market? If the market is pushing people to do things that aren't what we want then "its the free market" isn't a defense.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]