7 ms·

So it seems innovation is now completely non-existent at FB, and their new modus operandi is to throw shitloads of cash at any new fad that surfaces in the medi

by tacker2000 4y ago

So it seems innovation is now completely non-existent at FB, and their new modus operandi is to throw shitloads of cash at any new fad that surfaces in the media and see what sticks. Thats tells you a lot about whats going on and what kind of people work inside there. They seem to be a dead man walking.

reaperducer 4y ago
their new modus operandi is to throw shitloads of cash at any new fad that surfaces in the media Cryptocurrency. Voice assistants. VR. What else?
- siva7 4y ago
  You have to think Big, not just in terms of single product areas like VR but how it fits all together in the Metaverse. Zuck is a genius in this regard
  - qsort 4y ago
    I can't tell if this is parody or not, which admittedly makes the comment 10x better.
    - baobabKoodaa 4y ago
      Did someone say AI on the blockchain... inside Metaverse?
- rchaud 4y ago
  Leveraging computer vision to transpose virtual dog ears on to your photos and videos? Seemed to work out for Snapchat, briefly.
gbasin 4y ago
When was that not the case? Only time I can think of is A/B testing facebook.com and maybe the transition to mobile feed?
stevespang 4y ago
[dead]
whoisjuan 4y ago
A simple Google search would show how much FB has contributed to the AI/ML community. I hate seeing these comments in HN. No substance. Just saying whatever to jump into the FB hate bus.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- PartiallyTyped 4y ago
  While there have been a few public failures that were rather ... embarrassing ... and had their plug pulled off quickly, I don't think anyone can, in good conscience, claim that Meta has not been supportive of the AI/ML community, both in terms of research output and in terms of tooling [1]. [1] https://pytorch.org https://pytorch.org
  - moregrist 4y ago
    Exactly. These are all R&D tools and papers. I think the criticism is quite valid if you look at actual products. It’s also a fair criticism of most of big tech wrt AI, and a lot of AI/ML: there’s a lot of cool-sounding R&D, but so far there are few (arguably no) resulting products. Maybe we’re starting to see that change, maybe not. Bing/ChatGPT is promising, but ... nascent. A lot of this has echoes of the self-driving revolution. Whenever I read techno-optimists on this site, I cannot help but think back to 2014-ish when they all predicted that there would be no truckers in 5 years and dramatic changes to infrastructure to support a wave of self-driving vehicles.
- neuronic 4y ago
  It is also questionable EVEN IF Facebook is just throwing cash at fads and has stopped being innovative. That doesn't mean shareholders will lose out which is the ONLY thing that counts. The inevitable nature of large corporations is to become bureaucratic and slow, yet many of them exist for decades without being innovative. It's sufficient to just buy out whoever is innovative in the market - Microsoft just bought into OpenAI big time. Other than incrementally developing its 40yo operating system Microsoft copies AWS, Netflix for games, Sublime Text and Macbooks while throwing some random cash at garage projects that amount to effectively nothing that can exist without subsidies (Hololens).
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
seydor 4y ago
When did facebook innovate? They are known for copying everything from everyone. FacebookAI is the most important think to come out of them , but it s not really related to FB's core business
- bretticus 4y ago
  PyTorch, React, GraphQL, Jest, FBOSS for data center networking, the list goes on. Companies dream of creating just one of these.
  - seydor 4y ago
    Now which of those are used by facebooks users
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - baobabKoodaa 4y ago
      Well, let's start with React. It's used by 100% of Facebook users.
      - throwaway1777 4y ago
        Almost every request is graphql. ML also… all the ads and feeds use it.
      - seydor 4y ago
        React is an innovation, in what exactly? It bloats the web with needless javascript and abstractions. It's a convenient shortcut for people making native mobile apps. It's not taking the world forward
  - dougmwne 4y ago
    Not to mention tons of contributions to VR. They may have mismanaged the PR on that, but the product, as it exists is quite a thrill.
greatpostman 4y ago
Facebook invented PyTorch
avalys 4y ago
What product innovation has Google produced in the last 5 years? Microsoft?
resource0x 4y ago
Pearson Airport in Toronto is voted one of the worst airports in North America. They routinely lose your baggage, delay the flights indefinitely, people have to sleep on the floor, etc. - totally dysfunctional airport. This problem is not new - it has persisted for years. Finally, they found a solution: throw AI at it! Here's the announcement: https://www.narcity.com/how-pearson-airport-air-canada-new-ai-technology-could-impact-your-flight https://www.narcity.com/how-pearson-airport-air-canada-new-a... And now, this meta thing... :-)
- xwowsersx 4y ago
  I'm not sure how airport logistics work, but isn't it the airlines that lose your luggage, as opposed to the airport itself? If that's right (I'm not sure it is) then it would seem unfair to criticize the airport for implementing facial recognition for boarding your flight. They are two different things — there's the airline issues and then airport-wide issues, no? Happy to be corrected.
  - resource0x 4y ago
    I don't know who is responsible for what, but in this particular instance, they work in tandem to create the most stressful experience for the passengers. https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2056928835691 https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2056928835691 https://www.gominplanet.com/blog/air-canada-the-worst-airline-in-the-world https://www.gominplanet.com/blog/air-canada-the-worst-airlin... My advice to anyone using Air Canada: upon arrival to the destination, don't waste time trying to find your suitcase on the carousel (it's not there anyway) - instead, go directly to the kiosk to complain about the lost luggage , otherwise you will have to stand in line for 2 hours. :-)
    - xwowsersx 4y ago
      Yikes, this sounds awful
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    I always thought that baggage handling at the airport itself was done by the airport as one of the services it provides to airlines.
MagicMoonlight 4y ago
Their original idea came from theft. There was never any innovation, they just happened to get lucky.
daqhris 4y ago
Nope, they are the shoulders of a giant on which researchers and programmers are building the next AI tools and products. See the open-source code repo of Meta Research. https://github.com/facebookresearch https://github.com/facebookresearch
a4isms 4y ago
I can’t insist that you’re wrong, but note that it is a very normal thing in business for the leader in any space to devote large amounts of investment cash to covering moves that might turn out to be disruptive. IBM famously did this with the IBM PC. They didn’t end up holding the lead in computing, but they certainly stayed relevant for another decade while their mainframe and minicomputer competitors struggled to get into personal computing but were late to the party. In the pop-business book “Bottom-Up Marketing,” this is given as one of the key strategies to being the leader: Play Defence. I wouldn’t say that a company playing defence by throwing cash at every fad that comes along necessarily means they are dying or dead. It just means they know they have to have a finger in every pie, “just in case.” It’s insurance.

reaperducer 4y ago

their new modus operandi is to throw shitloads of cash at any new fad that surfaces in the media Cryptocurrency. Voice assistants. VR. What else?

siva7 4y ago
You have to think Big, not just in terms of single product areas like VR but how it fits all together in the Metaverse. Zuck is a genius in this regard
- qsort 4y ago
  I can't tell if this is parody or not, which admittedly makes the comment 10x better.
  - baobabKoodaa 4y ago
    Did someone say AI on the blockchain... inside Metaverse?
rchaud 4y ago
Leveraging computer vision to transpose virtual dog ears on to your photos and videos? Seemed to work out for Snapchat, briefly.

gbasin 4y ago

When was that not the case? Only time I can think of is A/B testing facebook.com and maybe the transition to mobile feed?

stevespang 4y ago

[dead]

whoisjuan 4y ago

A simple Google search would show how much FB has contributed to the AI/ML community. I hate seeing these comments in HN. No substance. Just saying whatever to jump into the FB hate bus.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
PartiallyTyped 4y ago
While there have been a few public failures that were rather ... embarrassing ... and had their plug pulled off quickly, I don't think anyone can, in good conscience, claim that Meta has not been supportive of the AI/ML community, both in terms of research output and in terms of tooling [1]. [1] https://pytorch.org https://pytorch.org
- moregrist 4y ago
  Exactly. These are all R&D tools and papers. I think the criticism is quite valid if you look at actual products. It’s also a fair criticism of most of big tech wrt AI, and a lot of AI/ML: there’s a lot of cool-sounding R&D, but so far there are few (arguably no) resulting products. Maybe we’re starting to see that change, maybe not. Bing/ChatGPT is promising, but ... nascent. A lot of this has echoes of the self-driving revolution. Whenever I read techno-optimists on this site, I cannot help but think back to 2014-ish when they all predicted that there would be no truckers in 5 years and dramatic changes to infrastructure to support a wave of self-driving vehicles.
neuronic 4y ago
It is also questionable EVEN IF Facebook is just throwing cash at fads and has stopped being innovative. That doesn't mean shareholders will lose out which is the ONLY thing that counts. The inevitable nature of large corporations is to become bureaucratic and slow, yet many of them exist for decades without being innovative. It's sufficient to just buy out whoever is innovative in the market - Microsoft just bought into OpenAI big time. Other than incrementally developing its 40yo operating system Microsoft copies AWS, Netflix for games, Sublime Text and Macbooks while throwing some random cash at garage projects that amount to effectively nothing that can exist without subsidies (Hololens).

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

seydor 4y ago

When did facebook innovate? They are known for copying everything from everyone. FacebookAI is the most important think to come out of them , but it s not really related to FB's core business

bretticus 4y ago
PyTorch, React, GraphQL, Jest, FBOSS for data center networking, the list goes on. Companies dream of creating just one of these.
- seydor 4y ago
  Now which of those are used by facebooks users
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - baobabKoodaa 4y ago
    Well, let's start with React. It's used by 100% of Facebook users.
    - throwaway1777 4y ago
      Almost every request is graphql. ML also… all the ads and feeds use it.
    - seydor 4y ago
      React is an innovation, in what exactly? It bloats the web with needless javascript and abstractions. It's a convenient shortcut for people making native mobile apps. It's not taking the world forward
- dougmwne 4y ago
  Not to mention tons of contributions to VR. They may have mismanaged the PR on that, but the product, as it exists is quite a thrill.

greatpostman 4y ago

Facebook invented PyTorch

avalys 4y ago

What product innovation has Google produced in the last 5 years? Microsoft?

resource0x 4y ago

Pearson Airport in Toronto is voted one of the worst airports in North America. They routinely lose your baggage, delay the flights indefinitely, people have to sleep on the floor, etc. - totally dysfunctional airport. This problem is not new - it has persisted for years. Finally, they found a solution: throw AI at it! Here's the announcement: https://www.narcity.com/how-pearson-airport-air-canada-new-ai-technology-could-impact-your-flight https://www.narcity.com/how-pearson-airport-air-canada-new-a... And now, this meta thing... :-)

xwowsersx 4y ago
I'm not sure how airport logistics work, but isn't it the airlines that lose your luggage, as opposed to the airport itself? If that's right (I'm not sure it is) then it would seem unfair to criticize the airport for implementing facial recognition for boarding your flight. They are two different things — there's the airline issues and then airport-wide issues, no? Happy to be corrected.
- resource0x 4y ago
  I don't know who is responsible for what, but in this particular instance, they work in tandem to create the most stressful experience for the passengers. https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2056928835691 https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2056928835691 https://www.gominplanet.com/blog/air-canada-the-worst-airline-in-the-world https://www.gominplanet.com/blog/air-canada-the-worst-airlin... My advice to anyone using Air Canada: upon arrival to the destination, don't waste time trying to find your suitcase on the carousel (it's not there anyway) - instead, go directly to the kiosk to complain about the lost luggage , otherwise you will have to stand in line for 2 hours. :-)
  - xwowsersx 4y ago
    Yikes, this sounds awful
- JohnFen 4y ago
  I always thought that baggage handling at the airport itself was done by the airport as one of the services it provides to airlines.

MagicMoonlight 4y ago

Their original idea came from theft. There was never any innovation, they just happened to get lucky.

daqhris 4y ago

Nope, they are the shoulders of a giant on which researchers and programmers are building the next AI tools and products. See the open-source code repo of Meta Research. https://github.com/facebookresearch https://github.com/facebookresearch

a4isms 4y ago

I can’t insist that you’re wrong, but note that it is a very normal thing in business for the leader in any space to devote large amounts of investment cash to covering moves that might turn out to be disruptive. IBM famously did this with the IBM PC. They didn’t end up holding the lead in computing, but they certainly stayed relevant for another decade while their mainframe and minicomputer competitors struggled to get into personal computing but were late to the party. In the pop-business book “Bottom-Up Marketing,” this is given as one of the key strategies to being the leader: Play Defence. I wouldn’t say that a company playing defence by throwing cash at every fad that comes along necessarily means they are dying or dead. It just means they know they have to have a finger in every pie, “just in case.” It’s insurance.