Ask HN: Is there a way to submit academic papers online for review? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Is there a way to submit academic papers online for review?

#11

Post by peterweyand » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 1:07 PM UTC

foothebar wrote: post #10

peterweyand wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah understandable. The paper is ambitious in that it starts from first principles in some areas by necessity, but I would have to have someone check for consistency and references to Husserl, Heideger, Lacan, Plato, Korzybski, Zizek, modality theory, vagueness, and more and that's just for philosophy. The neural networks is an issue in that I don't know if my references to A^ are addressed within neural networks cu…

Just a further note: "AI" is a completely misleading name. No one (sane) in the "AI" business thinks of it as being intelligent. It's just automated statistics (it IS probabilistic) which can find patterns in data. So an An A' pattern won't fit. Also it usually has much less than a single hundred layers.

With current machine learning (neural networks as I understand them) I believe that there is no "intelligence". But I think it's possible to create an A^ pattern and my paper provides bounding around this area to make it possible. Whether it is computationally efficient to train an AI from a bottom up approach (np-incompleteness) or if it would return results that would be communicable between the AI and a human if it did I do not know. I need to make A^ more formal and find a specific example, but I think it may be possible to create a model using an image classifier (not a neural network as is currently done with say hand writing OCR).

Re: Ask HN: Is there a way to submit academic papers online for review?

#12

Post by peterweyand » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 1:22 PM UTC

jjgreen wrote: post #9

The usual deal would be to ask colleagues in the field, but (since that's not available) asking relevant experts on the understanding that most won't reply due to pressure of time, and that's OK. Not my field, so no proper comments from me, but - that hand-drawn figure needs sorting - no references? - for a review copy, 1.5-spacing and wide margins, for a "readable" copy, rework the typography, no underlining, no rag…

Yes this is a very rough preliminary draft. The lack of references is a problem, although I cite the literature in philosophy for a number or people without pulling direct quotes [Timothy Williamson on modality for example]. The paper would need to be run through LaTeX, and the charts would need to be done in LaTeX. As to your suggestion I fixed some of the formatting, but it needs a complete rework later.

As to the literature for machine learning, I currently do not understand the state of the art. My understanding of the models is that they are systems of neural networks with varying degrees of complexity, but in essence are still neural networks (without A^ as described). I would need to read more on the literature or talk to someone who has as it's a complicated field. One issue is that I don't know that there is any one right model or system of neural networks that has been shown to work - some apparently do and some don't and it's been more of an experimental approach. So who to cite? Navigating the literature may be difficult.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a way to submit academic papers online for review?

#13

Post by awercliyuna » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 1:32 PM UTC

There is a whole system put in place exactly for getting papers reviewed by (hopefully) competent experts: peer-reviewed journals. The system has many flaws, but at least in theory, that's precisely the purpose of its existence.

For most journals, submission is free and open to everyone. In particular, being an academic yourself is not a requirement. Of course, there are well-documented biases in the peer review system (some of which are indirect, like your background and writing style being different from that of the in-group). As a consequence your paper will start with a very heavy handicap.

However, since your objective is to get reviewed (not necessarily accepted/published in a prestigious journal), your objective should only be for your paper to be sent to peer reviewers. In other words, you only need to pass the first filter (the editor), which can already be a high bar for an outsider, but a much lower one than acceptance. If the reviewers then recommend rejection, then fine, at least you will get feedback because reviewers are typically requested to write a fairly detailed justifying report.

Here is a list of journals that may be relevant. Please send your manuscript to only one at a time, and only attempt another one after rejection. Simultaneous submission is regarded as very unethical.

Minds and Machines: https://www.springer.com/journal/11023

Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence: https://www.mcmp.philosophie.uni-muenchen.de/research/phil_a...

The AI Ethics Journal: https://www.aiethicsjournal.org/

Artificial Intelligence and Philosophy: https://www.omicsonline.org/scholarly/artificial-intelligenc...

Philosophies: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/philosophies

Regarding the paper itself, it is outside of my field of expertise, so I can only comment on the overall presentation... which is important if you want to convince the editor that its looks serious enough to warrant the effort of finding reviewers. I would advise removing everything from the first page except the title and abstract: the caveats, inspirations, apologies and thanks sections look unprofessional. Also, I could not find a discernible conclusion section. You do need to cite previous work (with a bibliography at the end of the paper). After you select the journal, look at a few papers published there, and emulate their structure. This will greatly improve your chances of getting past the editor and into proper peer review. (Editor rejections usually come with very limited justifications.)

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: Is there a way to submit academic papers online for review?

#14

Post by peterweyand » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 1:50 PM UTC

awercliyuna wrote: post #13

There is a whole system put in place exactly for getting papers reviewed by (hopefully) competent experts: peer-reviewed journals. The system has many flaws, but at least in theory, that's precisely the purpose of its existence. For most journals, submission is free and open to everyone. In particular, being an academic yourself is not a requirement. Of course, there are well-documented biases in the peer review syst…

Thanks, I'll definitely look into those resources. I don't know if I'll go the route of sending in the paper myself as I believe a thesis advisor might be necessary to establish whether I'm on the right track or not without spending months on this. It's in a weird area between philosophy and AI and I might need two or more people to weigh in (not in the sending to journals stage, but in the research stage). I also don't know if building a demonstrable model is necessary for A^. More questions than answers.

I hadn't know about these journals though so that's a definite plus. I'll keep them in mind when looking where to submit. I should also mention my aim isn't to publish per se, but to know whether I'm right. I don't know if publishing the results exclusively (if they are significant) would be ethical.

Thanks for the detailed reply!