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DeepMind - the company owned by Google, but behind things like AlphaFold is based on London. And one of the fathers of modern AI - leading the resurgence of res

DeepMind - the company owned by Google, but behind things like AlphaFold is based on London. And one of the fathers of modern AI - leading the resurgence of research into neural nets - Geoffrey Hinton is British-Canadian. He moved from Britain originally due to the difficulty in getting his research funded. So the issue isn't one of intellectual capital - and while it's obviously the case that well place monetary capital is an issue - it's not clear to me what the real underlying issue is. Perhaps Europe needs a tech/industrial revolution again - where the power shifts from the old guard to the new. Perhaps too many people in charge in Europe are from a certain class that studied history at university.

rcarmo 2y ago
Well, they were completely right in studying history, but maybe they should have studied better economics too.
- DrScientist 2y ago
  The most common degree for UK politicians is PPE - politics, philosophy and economics. I'm not sure the problem is an understanding of economics, it's an understanding of how the real world works, and how to make it better - they are often too easily swayed by big lobby groups with vested interests.
  - rcarmo 2y ago
    Well, at least we have more lawyers in the EU…
    - DrScientist 2y ago
      Law is also pretty common in the UK - though behind the accountants. Science and engineering isn't even a category for occupational background of UK MPs in the following report. https://www.smith-institute.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Who-Governs-Britain.pdf https://www.smith-institute.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/1...
h8hawk 2y ago
Hinton is not the "father of modern AI." This overlooks the contributions of many others. https://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/physics-nobel-2024-plagiarism.html https://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/physics-nobel-2024-plagiari...
- DrScientist 2y ago
  Sure the ideas go away away back - but most people had given up on neural nets after the initial excitement, and sure others were also working on it - however the difference for me is he used it to solve real world interesting problems - and by showing what was possible - that ignited the resurgence. Now you could argue that the people in the 60's and 70's didn't have the compute available to make non-toy networks, and it was only applying the same techniques on bigger datasets with more compute that was the real difference. Sure - but that happens all the time in science - every innovation is building on the shoulders of others and the assignment of the Nobel prize is as a result often rather arbitrary. Also don't underestimate the value of reducing to practice - the difference between coming up with an idea and actually making it work in practice.
kelipso 2y ago
I wouldn't discount the issue of intellectual capital. There are just a handful of universities in the UK that produce world class level work in CS. While there are dozens of such universities in the US. Numbers like that make a big difference. And if I remember correctly, PhDs in the UK are kind of weird compared to the US. Your thesis has to be research that you haven't published yet.

rcarmo 2y ago

Well, they were completely right in studying history, but maybe they should have studied better economics too.

DrScientist 2y ago
The most common degree for UK politicians is PPE - politics, philosophy and economics. I'm not sure the problem is an understanding of economics, it's an understanding of how the real world works, and how to make it better - they are often too easily swayed by big lobby groups with vested interests.
- rcarmo 2y ago
  Well, at least we have more lawyers in the EU…
  - DrScientist 2y ago
    Law is also pretty common in the UK - though behind the accountants. Science and engineering isn't even a category for occupational background of UK MPs in the following report. https://www.smith-institute.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Who-Governs-Britain.pdf https://www.smith-institute.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/1...

h8hawk 2y ago

Hinton is not the "father of modern AI." This overlooks the contributions of many others. https://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/physics-nobel-2024-plagiarism.html https://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/physics-nobel-2024-plagiari...

DrScientist 2y ago
Sure the ideas go away away back - but most people had given up on neural nets after the initial excitement, and sure others were also working on it - however the difference for me is he used it to solve real world interesting problems - and by showing what was possible - that ignited the resurgence. Now you could argue that the people in the 60's and 70's didn't have the compute available to make non-toy networks, and it was only applying the same techniques on bigger datasets with more compute that was the real difference. Sure - but that happens all the time in science - every innovation is building on the shoulders of others and the assignment of the Nobel prize is as a result often rather arbitrary. Also don't underestimate the value of reducing to practice - the difference between coming up with an idea and actually making it work in practice.

kelipso 2y ago

I wouldn't discount the issue of intellectual capital. There are just a handful of universities in the UK that produce world class level work in CS. While there are dozens of such universities in the US. Numbers like that make a big difference. And if I remember correctly, PhDs in the UK are kind of weird compared to the US. Your thesis has to be research that you haven't published yet.