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Hats off to people who do this kind of work. However... clears throat I have real trouble using the term "research" for something like this, lumping it toget

Hats off to people who do this kind of work. However... *clears throat* I have real trouble using the term "research" for something like this, lumping it together with activities such as "research" in natural science, "research" in anthropology, or even journalistic "research". The difference to me is that this activity could be "done", or rather entirely avoided, if Apple didn't decide to keep it a secret. Mind you, I'm not saying Apple doesn't have good reasons to keep them secret, for some definition of "good". I just think that this person just spent hours upon hours of their life working around a quirk in our current society. I'm aware I'm splitting hairs, but "we don't know what the architecture is" to me is fundamentally different to "we don't know what dark energy is." The former is something that could "easily" be changed, the latter is not. Lumping them together just cements the idea that the systems we built and navigate, for better or worse, are to be treated like natural laws that can't be argued with. /rant

njitbew 6y ago
The distinction you're making is more about _fundamental_ research vs. _applied_ research, but it is research nevertheless. From the first hit I found on Google: * Fundamental researches mainly aim to answer the questions of why, what or how and they tend to contribute the pool of fundamental knowledge in the research area. * Opposite to fundamental research is applied research that aims to solve specific problems, thus findings of applied research do have immediate practical implications.
mindvirus 6y ago
Your comment reminds me of a scifi story (Greg Egan maybe?) where AI has taken the lead on science, and humanity's scientists' job is now just to understand the AI's discoveries.
- atq2119 6y ago
  There's a fictitious journal article with this premise by Ted Chiang.
monocasa 6y ago
Just because other humans created the knowledge in question, doesn't make the search for that knowledge not research, if the knowledge isn't held by the general public in the first place, and if that knowledge requires independent gathering of data and interpretation to acquire. I agree that Apple and the quirks in our society that encourage that secretive behavior has the effect of researchers independently replicating a small subset of Apple's work in a way that they'd be redirected to something more useful in a more open society. That doesn't make the independent researcher's work not research though. Otherwise nearly the whole field of anthropology wouldn't exist or wouldn't be considered research. > Lumping them together just cements the idea that the systems we built and navigate, for better or worse, are to be treated like natural laws that can't be argued with. The systems we have built are pretty fixed in time. We can argue about how to change them going in the future, but we should also record, externally if need be like here, what has happened so that we can make better decisions going forward. Apple's choices for the M1 are arguably more set in stone than our conception of physics. We're able to retcon all of physics when we make changes to the standard model, but "what tradeoffs did Apple make in the M1" are pretty much done and set in stone (or silicon I guess).
gumby 6y ago
I understand where you’d coming from and also do a double take when I read this term, though I think it’s legit. Consider: what does an agency that spies on other countries’ governments do? Research?
guerrilla 6y ago
Research you don't like is still research.
koolkat666 6y ago
lots of journalistic research is also about uncovering secret knowledge and information, for example classified government documents, corporate cover-ups and various forms of human rights violations. you are right tho, that with more transparency and less predatory legal constructs the jobs of both journalist and computer researchers would be way easier.
glangdale 6y ago
That's a weird take. Journalistic research, for example, also often involves bringing to light facts that some in-group already knows. The word research is a lot broader than what you claim; people talk about "researching" which television set to buy, and everyone understands what they mean. So your contribution here is "this guy is figuring out stuff that people at Apple already pretty much know". Err, thanks, Captain Obvious.
- guerrilla 6y ago
  Security research could be considered another similar example.
- Gaelan 6y ago
  I mean, I read the parent comment more as "it's a shame that we, as a society, waste so much time figuring out stuff we already know but are unwilling to share".
  - boardwaalk 6y ago
    I think it does say that, but it also says: > I have real trouble using the term "research" for something like this, lumping it together with activities such as "research" in natural science, "research" in anthropology, or even journalistic "research". Considering we're on "Hacker News" right now, and saying something like "hacking (in the reverse engineering sense) is research-like but not fundamental enough to be research" is bound to be a bit controversial. It's a slippery slope anyways. Is researching anything that might have been known by someone at some point in time now not research? And it feels a bit like gatekeeping too.
    - Gaelan 6y ago
      Yeah, I'm not at all sure the distinction over terminology is terribly useful, but I do think GP's underlying point is interesting.
  - glangdale 6y ago
    It's possible that he could have expressed these same thoughts without sounding like such a jerk, though.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
Think of it as approaching the topic from the other side. It is very analogous to what security researchers to. Consider things like the incompleteness theorem, and how there will always be gaps in our implementation of a given epistemology, in this case computer science, hoping to achieve a given end. Researchers then look at that output while entirely blind, and then they work backwards, and they can sometimes uncover very useful insights that the original creators may have been blind to.
mbell 6y ago
> I just think that this person just spent hours upon hours of their life working around a quirk in our current society. I think this is a truism. Much human activity could fall under 'working around a quirk in our current society' at some level or another. Even your dark energy researcher probably spent untold hours greasing the funding gears.
kergonath 6y ago
I dislike the fact that “research” has so broad a meaning in English. In particular, journalistic research does not have much in common with scientific research. And this constant push to “do your research” from crackpots and pseudo-skeptics is giving research a bad name (of course, they don’t mean scientific research either). Going down a rabbit hole on Wikipedia watching more or less dubious videos is studying at best, not researching. Anyway, in this case, “research” is legit, even from a scientific perspective: there is an object, and hypotheses are tested, and observations are made to gain insights on how it works. Perfectly legitimate piece of applied research.
qmmmur 6y ago
There are known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns. Getting to the bottom of all of them are research.
bubblethink 6y ago
You are getting downvoted, but I agree with parts of your argument. The part that is perhaps missing is that reversing the microarchitecture or any complex system is generally not an end in itself. It is a prerequisite for more meaningful research. For e.g., building a simulator or finding side-channel vulnerabilities require a good understanding of the u-arch.
avaldeso 6y ago
Reminds me of computer virus research in the 90's. "we've found the polymorphic encryption algorithm...". Ok? That's not akin to discover some function on a biological virus. It's just discovering other (even worse, contemporary) people's work. Just like a "reaction" YouTube video, it adds nothing new.
Hiopl 6y ago
But Apple did keep it a secret and the research involved discovering those secrets for the rest of us. That's still research and it's still valuable. The fact that it shouldn't have to be this way only makes this kind of research more valuable, not less.

Hats off to people who do this kind of work. However... *clears throat* I have real trouble using the term "research" for something like this, lumping it toget

njitbew 6y ago

The distinction you're making is more about _fundamental_ research vs. _applied_ research, but it is research nevertheless. From the first hit I found on Google: * Fundamental researches mainly aim to answer the questions of why, what or how and they tend to contribute the pool of fundamental knowledge in the research area. * Opposite to fundamental research is applied research that aims to solve specific problems, thus findings of applied research do have immediate practical implications.

mindvirus 6y ago

Your comment reminds me of a scifi story (Greg Egan maybe?) where AI has taken the lead on science, and humanity's scientists' job is now just to understand the AI's discoveries.

atq2119 6y ago
There's a fictitious journal article with this premise by Ted Chiang.

monocasa 6y ago

Just because other humans created the knowledge in question, doesn't make the search for that knowledge not research, if the knowledge isn't held by the general public in the first place, and if that knowledge requires independent gathering of data and interpretation to acquire. I agree that Apple and the quirks in our society that encourage that secretive behavior has the effect of researchers independently replicating a small subset of Apple's work in a way that they'd be redirected to something more useful in a more open society. That doesn't make the independent researcher's work not research though. Otherwise nearly the whole field of anthropology wouldn't exist or wouldn't be considered research. > Lumping them together just cements the idea that the systems we built and navigate, for better or worse, are to be treated like natural laws that can't be argued with. The systems we have built are pretty fixed in time. We can argue about how to change them going in the future, but we should also record, externally if need be like here, what has happened so that we can make better decisions going forward. Apple's choices for the M1 are arguably more set in stone than our conception of physics. We're able to retcon all of physics when we make changes to the standard model, but "what tradeoffs did Apple make in the M1" are pretty much done and set in stone (or silicon I guess).

gumby 6y ago

I understand where you’d coming from and also do a double take when I read this term, though I think it’s legit. Consider: what does an agency that spies on other countries’ governments do? Research?

guerrilla 6y ago

Research you don't like is still research.

koolkat666 6y ago

lots of journalistic research is also about uncovering secret knowledge and information, for example classified government documents, corporate cover-ups and various forms of human rights violations. you are right tho, that with more transparency and less predatory legal constructs the jobs of both journalist and computer researchers would be way easier.

glangdale 6y ago

That's a weird take. Journalistic research, for example, also often involves bringing to light facts that some in-group already knows. The word research is a lot broader than what you claim; people talk about "researching" which television set to buy, and everyone understands what they mean. So your contribution here is "this guy is figuring out stuff that people at Apple already pretty much know". Err, thanks, Captain Obvious.

guerrilla 6y ago
Security research could be considered another similar example.
Gaelan 6y ago
I mean, I read the parent comment more as "it's a shame that we, as a society, waste so much time figuring out stuff we already know but are unwilling to share".
- boardwaalk 6y ago
  I think it does say that, but it also says: > I have real trouble using the term "research" for something like this, lumping it together with activities such as "research" in natural science, "research" in anthropology, or even journalistic "research". Considering we're on "Hacker News" right now, and saying something like "hacking (in the reverse engineering sense) is research-like but not fundamental enough to be research" is bound to be a bit controversial. It's a slippery slope anyways. Is researching anything that might have been known by someone at some point in time now not research? And it feels a bit like gatekeeping too.
  - Gaelan 6y ago
    Yeah, I'm not at all sure the distinction over terminology is terribly useful, but I do think GP's underlying point is interesting.
- glangdale 6y ago
  It's possible that he could have expressed these same thoughts without sounding like such a jerk, though.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

Think of it as approaching the topic from the other side. It is very analogous to what security researchers to. Consider things like the incompleteness theorem, and how there will always be gaps in our implementation of a given epistemology, in this case computer science, hoping to achieve a given end. Researchers then look at that output while entirely blind, and then they work backwards, and they can sometimes uncover very useful insights that the original creators may have been blind to.

mbell 6y ago

> I just think that this person just spent hours upon hours of their life working around a quirk in our current society. I think this is a truism. Much human activity could fall under 'working around a quirk in our current society' at some level or another. Even your dark energy researcher probably spent untold hours greasing the funding gears.

kergonath 6y ago

I dislike the fact that “research” has so broad a meaning in English. In particular, journalistic research does not have much in common with scientific research. And this constant push to “do your research” from crackpots and pseudo-skeptics is giving research a bad name (of course, they don’t mean scientific research either). Going down a rabbit hole on Wikipedia watching more or less dubious videos is studying at best, not researching. Anyway, in this case, “research” is legit, even from a scientific perspective: there is an object, and hypotheses are tested, and observations are made to gain insights on how it works. Perfectly legitimate piece of applied research.

qmmmur 6y ago

There are known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns. Getting to the bottom of all of them are research.

bubblethink 6y ago

You are getting downvoted, but I agree with parts of your argument. The part that is perhaps missing is that reversing the microarchitecture or any complex system is generally not an end in itself. It is a prerequisite for more meaningful research. For e.g., building a simulator or finding side-channel vulnerabilities require a good understanding of the u-arch.

avaldeso 6y ago

Reminds me of computer virus research in the 90's. "we've found the polymorphic encryption algorithm...". Ok? That's not akin to discover some function on a biological virus. It's just discovering other (even worse, contemporary) people's work. Just like a "reaction" YouTube video, it adds nothing new.

Hiopl 6y ago

But Apple did keep it a secret and the research involved discovering those secrets for the rest of us. That's still research and it's still valuable. The fact that it shouldn't have to be this way only makes this kind of research more valuable, not less.