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There's a difference between capital/operational expenditures to reproduce work, and directly paying the owner of the work. The former is science. The latter i

by ethbr0 3y ago

There's a difference between capital/operational expenditures to reproduce work, and directly paying the owner of the work. The former is science. The latter is a commercial product. Stretching their business model to its most charitable interpretation of "open", OpenAI is essentially offering "Here's the cost for the lab and labor for the work you want to do. We'll do it and send you the results, but won't give you any of our lab procedures or intermediate data."

taeric 3y ago
I mean, sorta? Science is advanced in many ways. Not all are open. Some for good reasons. Some not.
- ethbr0 3y ago
  Fair. But there's a difference between "openly accessible scientific information" and "trade secrets". The US military has pushed state of the art in many fields, but I don't think anyone would say it pushed stealth composite science forward with the B-2/F-22/F-35 programs, because all the details are classified. The risk is that non-shared research is eventually lost.
  - taeric 3y ago
    Also mostly fair. I think the catch is Open AI is risking turning "open" into a weasel word? That is, still science, but hardly open. Which is fine, but then don't call yourself open?
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      As near as I can tell, there's nothing really "open" about OpenAI. I think that they include that word in their name is about marketing, and really does help to make the word meaningless.
      - dragonwriter 3y ago
        OpenAI originally was a nonprofit nominally focussed on AI that was actually open, then they branched off a for-profit subsidiary with heavy involvement with Microsoft, came up with “safety” as an excuse to abandon openness, and created the “Open”AI of today.
brookst 3y ago
I'm uncomfortable with your conflation of science, openness, and financing.
UncleEntity 3y ago
> There's a difference between capital/operational expenditures to reproduce work, and directly paying the owner of the work. But you can reproduce the work with a shitton of compute and a massive dataset. They aren’t sharing their exact strategy but the technique is fairly well known. IMHO it really doesn’t matter, advancing science comes from trying different things and not from reproducing someone else’s work to prove it works.
- ethbr0 3y ago
  > advancing science comes from trying different things and not from reproducing someone else’s work to prove it works I'd say yes/no. Efficiently advancing science definitely leverages well-reported and -reproduced results to skip to building on top of them.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > advancing science comes from trying different things and not from reproducing someone else’s work to prove it works. I disagree with this. If scientists aren't reproducing the work of other scientists, then science cannot advance. Reproduction of results is one of the main mechanisms by which science separates reality from fantasy. Of course, if reproducing other's results is the only thing scientists do, that also does not advance understanding. But that doesn't take away the extreme importance of reproducing the experiments of others.
  - disgruntledphd2 3y ago
    > I disagree with this. If scientists aren't reproducing the work of other scientists, then science cannot advance. Reproduction of results is one of the main mechanisms by which science separates reality from fantasy. Are you or have you been a professional scientist? Because while that's how it should work, it generally doesn't anymore as it's really, really difficult to get straight replications (which are desperately needed) published.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      > Are you or have you been a professional scientist? Not directly, but I've worked as a research assistant in a number of labs for real, professional scientists and I'm a coauthor on a few papers. > it's really, really difficult to get straight replications (which are desperately needed) published. This is a fact. But nonetheless, such replications do get done. Not enough, certainly. But pointing out that the way institutional science is done is flawed doesn't invalidate my point at all.
JohnFen 3y ago
I think a lot of this is because people are constantly conflating "science" and "engineering". "Science" is a method of determining objective truth. "Engineering" is taking the truths science uncovers and using them to make things. Commercial enterprises, including OpenAI, are about engineering first and foremost. They may also engage in science, but that is only to serve the engineering. (Saying that is not saying the there's something wrong with the science they engage in).
- taeric 3y ago
  This is a bit of a false distinction, all told. More than a few of our "scientific discoveries" were the results of studying the best engineering could do at the time.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    I think the distinction is valid and useful, but science and engineering do each inform the other. The point is that the scientist is primarily intending to learn something solid about reality, and the engineer is primarily intending to create something that is practically useful.
    - taeric 3y ago
      I get the intent of the distinction. I just don't know that it has ever been as clean of a taxonomy as would be desired. Maybe we have had some solid "pure scientists." Largely we would label them closer to philosophers? That said, the vast majority that you know the name of, were probably employed closer to what we think of as engineers in today's parlance. Or am I off here and the likes of Feynman, Faraday, Fourier, Maxwell, etc. would not have been said to be working on engineering problems, by modern eyes? My gut is that it gets difficult as looking at things with our modern lens of corporations today makes it hard to really consider institutions of the past?

by ethbr0 3y ago

taeric 3y ago

I mean, sorta? Science is advanced in many ways. Not all are open. Some for good reasons. Some not.

ethbr0 3y ago
Fair. But there's a difference between "openly accessible scientific information" and "trade secrets". The US military has pushed state of the art in many fields, but I don't think anyone would say it pushed stealth composite science forward with the B-2/F-22/F-35 programs, because all the details are classified. The risk is that non-shared research is eventually lost.
- taeric 3y ago
  Also mostly fair. I think the catch is Open AI is risking turning "open" into a weasel word? That is, still science, but hardly open. Which is fine, but then don't call yourself open?
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    As near as I can tell, there's nothing really "open" about OpenAI. I think that they include that word in their name is about marketing, and really does help to make the word meaningless.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      OpenAI originally was a nonprofit nominally focussed on AI that was actually open, then they branched off a for-profit subsidiary with heavy involvement with Microsoft, came up with “safety” as an excuse to abandon openness, and created the “Open”AI of today.

brookst 3y ago

I'm uncomfortable with your conflation of science, openness, and financing.

UncleEntity 3y ago

> There's a difference between capital/operational expenditures to reproduce work, and directly paying the owner of the work. But you can reproduce the work with a shitton of compute and a massive dataset. They aren’t sharing their exact strategy but the technique is fairly well known. IMHO it really doesn’t matter, advancing science comes from trying different things and not from reproducing someone else’s work to prove it works.

ethbr0 3y ago
> advancing science comes from trying different things and not from reproducing someone else’s work to prove it works I'd say yes/no. Efficiently advancing science definitely leverages well-reported and -reproduced results to skip to building on top of them.
JohnFen 3y ago
> advancing science comes from trying different things and not from reproducing someone else’s work to prove it works. I disagree with this. If scientists aren't reproducing the work of other scientists, then science cannot advance. Reproduction of results is one of the main mechanisms by which science separates reality from fantasy. Of course, if reproducing other's results is the only thing scientists do, that also does not advance understanding. But that doesn't take away the extreme importance of reproducing the experiments of others.
- disgruntledphd2 3y ago
  > I disagree with this. If scientists aren't reproducing the work of other scientists, then science cannot advance. Reproduction of results is one of the main mechanisms by which science separates reality from fantasy. Are you or have you been a professional scientist? Because while that's how it should work, it generally doesn't anymore as it's really, really difficult to get straight replications (which are desperately needed) published.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > Are you or have you been a professional scientist? Not directly, but I've worked as a research assistant in a number of labs for real, professional scientists and I'm a coauthor on a few papers. > it's really, really difficult to get straight replications (which are desperately needed) published. This is a fact. But nonetheless, such replications do get done. Not enough, certainly. But pointing out that the way institutional science is done is flawed doesn't invalidate my point at all.

JohnFen 3y ago

I think a lot of this is because people are constantly conflating "science" and "engineering". "Science" is a method of determining objective truth. "Engineering" is taking the truths science uncovers and using them to make things. Commercial enterprises, including OpenAI, are about engineering first and foremost. They may also engage in science, but that is only to serve the engineering. (Saying that is not saying the there's something wrong with the science they engage in).

taeric 3y ago
This is a bit of a false distinction, all told. More than a few of our "scientific discoveries" were the results of studying the best engineering could do at the time.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  I think the distinction is valid and useful, but science and engineering do each inform the other. The point is that the scientist is primarily intending to learn something solid about reality, and the engineer is primarily intending to create something that is practically useful.
  - taeric 3y ago
    I get the intent of the distinction. I just don't know that it has ever been as clean of a taxonomy as would be desired. Maybe we have had some solid "pure scientists." Largely we would label them closer to philosophers? That said, the vast majority that you know the name of, were probably employed closer to what we think of as engineers in today's parlance. Or am I off here and the likes of Feynman, Faraday, Fourier, Maxwell, etc. would not have been said to be working on engineering problems, by modern eyes? My gut is that it gets difficult as looking at things with our modern lens of corporations today makes it hard to really consider institutions of the past?