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"Once you can recognize key objects in images, you can target ads not just on keywords but on objects in an image." It is sad that so much amazing tech is bein

"Once you can recognize key objects in images, you can target ads not just on keywords but on objects in an image." It is sad that so much amazing tech is being used primarily to deliver ads more effectively. Deep learning is not the first, nor will it be the last, technology for which that is the case...but, it doesn't make it any less depressing. I like free markets, but somehow our collective consciousness needs to shift from valuing making money over all other things. And, it's alarming that many of the most valuable companies primary products are ads. Many companies that make real things (like electric cars and solar panels) are worth vastly less than many of the companies that spit ads about real things at people (like Google and Facebook). Something seems unbalanced about that. It seems so wrong, in fact, that it feels vaguely dangerous, to me, though I can't quite put my finger on why.

aaronharnly 12y ago
Yes, I agree -- seeing our best minds work on our lamest problems is distressing. Though arguably, it's an improvement from the previous condition, in in which our best technology was primarily used to produce weapons of war. At least some of the products of the social media & web advertising era give people access to information and one another, two fundamental human drives. That's a bit better than "better technology to persuade people to buy stuff."
- unknownian 12y ago
  >seeing our best minds work on our lamest problems is distressing I've seen this a lot, and it's probably true. But because of cuts to research and capitalism's "market failure" as Gates calls it, when it comes to research, does it really matter? The highly motivated and brilliant people will go off into research anyway. The fault isn't the people of course, it's the markets.
agibsonccc 12y ago
If it helps, this is primarily what I'm setting out to solve building a sort of cloudera/red hat for deep learning at skymind. An open source google brain for big companies to solve interesting problems is appealing provided the right interface.
eevilspock 12y ago
"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks." – Jeff Hammerbacher, fmr. Manager of Facebook Data Team, founder of Cloudera What's critical to understand is that he's not just talking about the minority that is directly working on ad technology. He's talking about everyone who works on an ad-supported website that depends on page views, which is nearly all of them. Since revenue is proportional to page views, the driving concern is to increase page views rather than maximizing end user satisfaction, which only has secondary importance as one factor in page views, and often not the largest factor. As to the free market, advertising distorts it very badly. The free market is based on consumers voting with their wallets. What happens when the wallets are held by advertisers? And for what do we accept the above state of affairs? So that we can get content and services for free? Then we are all suckers! It's an absolute lie that ads give us anything for free. It actually makes the web much more expensive: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7485773 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7485773]
vijayr 12y ago
Another thing that feels so wrong - people who save lives (doctors, cops, EMTs etc), people who shape the next generation (teachers) etc make a pittance compared to sports persons, people who make shitty music etc Something is so wrong about our priorities as a species (not saying sportspersons are worth less, simply pointing out teachers/doctors etc are worth much more than they get credit for)

aaronharnly 12y ago

Yes, I agree -- seeing our best minds work on our lamest problems is distressing. Though arguably, it's an improvement from the previous condition, in in which our best technology was primarily used to produce weapons of war. At least some of the products of the social media & web advertising era give people access to information and one another, two fundamental human drives. That's a bit better than "better technology to persuade people to buy stuff."

unknownian 12y ago
>seeing our best minds work on our lamest problems is distressing I've seen this a lot, and it's probably true. But because of cuts to research and capitalism's "market failure" as Gates calls it, when it comes to research, does it really matter? The highly motivated and brilliant people will go off into research anyway. The fault isn't the people of course, it's the markets.

agibsonccc 12y ago

If it helps, this is primarily what I'm setting out to solve building a sort of cloudera/red hat for deep learning at skymind. An open source google brain for big companies to solve interesting problems is appealing provided the right interface.

eevilspock 12y ago

"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks." – Jeff Hammerbacher, fmr. Manager of Facebook Data Team, founder of Cloudera What's critical to understand is that he's not just talking about the minority that is directly working on ad technology. He's talking about everyone who works on an ad-supported website that depends on page views, which is nearly all of them. Since revenue is proportional to page views, the driving concern is to increase page views rather than maximizing end user satisfaction, which only has secondary importance as one factor in page views, and often not the largest factor. As to the free market, advertising distorts it very badly. The free market is based on consumers voting with their wallets. What happens when the wallets are held by advertisers? And for what do we accept the above state of affairs? So that we can get content and services for free? Then we are all suckers! It's an absolute lie that ads give us anything for free. It actually makes the web much more expensive: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7485773 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7485773]

vijayr 12y ago

Another thing that feels so wrong - people who save lives (doctors, cops, EMTs etc), people who shape the next generation (teachers) etc make a pittance compared to sports persons, people who make shitty music etc Something is so wrong about our priorities as a species (not saying sportspersons are worth less, simply pointing out teachers/doctors etc are worth much more than they get credit for)