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Can you provide more information about him? The mental image I got purely from reading the blog/paper is quite intriguing...

jowday 5y ago
His schtick is claiming he’s real “father of deep learning” and that all major work in ML has been built off of work done in his lab, and that he’s unjustly remained unrecognized while other pioneers in the field have received tons of awards and compensation from big tech companies. When I say it’s his shtick, I mean that he basically brings it up whenever possible. When another big name in the field receives an award, he’ll write up a huge blog post about how ackshually they didn’t invent XYZ, but rather modified A and B, which is related to work C he did at his lab in 1980. See https://people.idsia.ch//~juergen/critique-honda-prize-hinton.html https://people.idsia.ch//~juergen/critique-honda-prize-hinto... https://people.idsia.ch//~juergen/naturedeepmind.html https://people.idsia.ch//~juergen/naturedeepmind.html https://people.idsia.ch//~juergen/critique-turing-award-bengio-hinton-lecun.html https://people.idsia.ch//~juergen/critique-turing-award-beng... At 1:03:00 in this video he interrupts a lecture at NIPS from Goodfellow (another leader in the field) to try and claim credit for the subject of the lecture in a sort of slimy way. https://youtube.com/watch?v=HGYYEUSm-0Q&feature=share https://youtube.com/watch?v=HGYYEUSm-0Q&feature=share Honestly I’m not equipped to tell whether Schmidhuber’s claims are true since I haven’t followed the progression of ML research since the 1980s - but the impression I get of him is that he’s kind of a jackass who’s willing to spend a ton of time tearing others down in really petty ways. If there is some truth to his claims, perhaps the reason he’s unrecognized is because he’s a bit of an ass to work with?
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  I met him, he’s very nice in person (at least over the course of a day, say). Kind, patient and genuinely interested in other people. So I doubt it is as simple as he’s a horrible person. But clearly he’s an outlier in terms of demanding recognition.
- saeranv 5y ago
  Tangent: While I've listened to him on podcasts, and am reading his Deep Learning textbook, this is the first time I've seen Goodfellow in person. I'm crushed to see that he is not, as I assumed, some 60 year old professor who has spent decades earning his expertise, and instead is someone young enough to pass as a college student!
macksd 5y ago
A lot of context in his own post here, and the reply from Dr. Hinton is linked: https://people.idsia.ch//~juergen/critique-honda-prize-hinton.html https://people.idsia.ch//~juergen/critique-honda-prize-hinto... I stopped reading at [backpropagation] "wasn't created by "lots of different people" but by exactly one person who published first [BP1] and therefore should get the credit". Okay, so he was the first. Brilliant insight. Hugely valuable. He should get credit for that, and I'm very sympathetic if that hasn't happened (I don't follow other research enough to make any strong statement about if he has or hasn't received appropriate recognition). But that was 50 years ago and many equally insightful and impactful developments have gotten us to the point where backpropagation is being done in a practical way. "Exactly one person" is ridiculous.

jowday 5y ago

His schtick is claiming he’s real “father of deep learning” and that all major work in ML has been built off of work done in his lab, and that he’s unjustly remained unrecognized while other pioneers in the field have received tons of awards and compensation from big tech companies. When I say it’s his shtick, I mean that he basically brings it up whenever possible. When another big name in the field receives an award, he’ll write up a huge blog post about how ackshually they didn’t invent XYZ, but rather modified A and B, which is related to work C he did at his lab in 1980. See https://people.idsia.ch//~juergen/critique-honda-prize-hinton.html https://people.idsia.ch//~juergen/critique-honda-prize-hinto... https://people.idsia.ch//~juergen/naturedeepmind.html https://people.idsia.ch//~juergen/naturedeepmind.html https://people.idsia.ch//~juergen/critique-turing-award-bengio-hinton-lecun.html https://people.idsia.ch//~juergen/critique-turing-award-beng... At 1:03:00 in this video he interrupts a lecture at NIPS from Goodfellow (another leader in the field) to try and claim credit for the subject of the lecture in a sort of slimy way. https://youtube.com/watch?v=HGYYEUSm-0Q&feature=share https://youtube.com/watch?v=HGYYEUSm-0Q&feature=share Honestly I’m not equipped to tell whether Schmidhuber’s claims are true since I haven’t followed the progression of ML research since the 1980s - but the impression I get of him is that he’s kind of a jackass who’s willing to spend a ton of time tearing others down in really petty ways. If there is some truth to his claims, perhaps the reason he’s unrecognized is because he’s a bit of an ass to work with?

rich_sasha 5y ago
I met him, he’s very nice in person (at least over the course of a day, say). Kind, patient and genuinely interested in other people. So I doubt it is as simple as he’s a horrible person. But clearly he’s an outlier in terms of demanding recognition.
saeranv 5y ago
Tangent: While I've listened to him on podcasts, and am reading his Deep Learning textbook, this is the first time I've seen Goodfellow in person. I'm crushed to see that he is not, as I assumed, some 60 year old professor who has spent decades earning his expertise, and instead is someone young enough to pass as a college student!

macksd 5y ago

A lot of context in his own post here, and the reply from Dr. Hinton is linked: https://people.idsia.ch//~juergen/critique-honda-prize-hinton.html https://people.idsia.ch//~juergen/critique-honda-prize-hinto... I stopped reading at [backpropagation] "wasn't created by "lots of different people" but by exactly one person who published first [BP1] and therefore should get the credit". Okay, so he was the first. Brilliant insight. Hugely valuable. He should get credit for that, and I'm very sympathetic if that hasn't happened (I don't follow other research enough to make any strong statement about if he has or hasn't received appropriate recognition). But that was 50 years ago and many equally insightful and impactful developments have gotten us to the point where backpropagation is being done in a practical way. "Exactly one person" is ridiculous.