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Yes, but let's not assume the the hundreds of other scientists in the field have just been twiddling their thumbs the whole time. It is preposterous to assume t
by short_sells_poo 7y ago
Yes, but let's not assume the the hundreds of other scientists in the field have just been twiddling their thumbs the whole time. It is preposterous to assume that someone largely new to a highly specialized field can somehow start pushing the envelope within a week. Yes, JC is nothing short of brilliant, but these sort of assumptions just set him up to disappoint and is also highly unfair to all the other hardworking brilliant people in the field.
- nitwit005 7y agoThey didn't suggest he invented some new technique. Figuring out the basics of the math and how to use whatever tools they use at FB is doable in a week.
- _bxg1 7y agoSometimes an outside perspective is just the ticket for getting past roadblocks that've stumped the experts. If any outsider could do this, it's John.
- rfhjt 7y agoHow many of them are doing real research, though? Corporate researchers improve ads impressions and academics researches are busy generating pointless papers or they won't be paid. Very few if any do actual research.
- mr_mitm 7y agoGenerating papers is research. I don't understand why you dismiss all papers as pointless.
- rfhjt 7y agoThe need to generate publishable papers means that a researcher can only participate in activity that leads to such a paper. He can't try to work on that idea for 5 years, because if no big papers follow, he's toast /he'd probably lose funding long before that).
- p1esk 7y agoYou have to earn the right to work on your idea for 5 years and get paid. Otherwise we would be funding all kind of crackpots. First you demonstrate you're a good researcher by producing good results. Then you can work on whatever you feel like (either by getting hired at places like DeepMind, or by finding funding sources that want to pay for what you want to work on).
- rfhjt 7y agoThis is what I meant. In our society, only very few, usually already rich, can try their own ideas. Most of us have to stick with known ideas that bring profit to business owners or meaningful visibility to universities. When I was in college, I had to work on ideas approved by my professor. Now I have to work on ideas approved by my corporation. But if I had money, I'd work on something completely different. Sure, in 15 I will be rich and can start doing my own stuff, but I'll also be old and my ability will be nowhere near the peak at 25 years.
- p1esk 7y agoWhat would you work on if you could? Would you say you deserve to be paid for 5 years of uninterrupted research? Do you think you have a decent chance to make a breakthrough in some field? These are the questions I ask myself.
- p1esk 7y agoIf you look at papers from corporate AI researchers (FAIR, Google Brain, DeepMind, OpenAI, etc) they pretty much do whatever they want.
- rfhjt 7y agoAnd I disagree violently. The deepmind folks are on salary and every year they need to prove that they are worth the money. This applies to Demis himself: he needs to prove that his org deserves this gaziliion of dollars per year.
- p1esk 7y agoMy point is they are not constrained to working on ads, or anything specific, and their work is not pointless.
- username90 7y agoThey are constrained to problems with annual results though.