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Ask HN: How and where can I publish my research on AI as a college dropout?

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Re: Ask HN: How and where can I publish my research on AI as a college dropout?

#61

Post by BeetleB »

probably_wrong wrote: post #35
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like having all those arbitrary requirements is good for nothing but gatekeeping higher education. Why not have those requirements publicly known and not unnecessarily complicated so that everyone can submit info?

They are publicly known. But I would say most paper requirements are "necessarily complicated", simply because science is hard. Writing a scientific paper requires both solid science (both good results and good scientific practices) and solid writing skills to convey an important idea in a clear and precise way. Mastering both aspects requires time and effort. An academic author is a person who made a job out of it.…

>Writing a scientific paper requires both solid science (both good results and good scientific practices) and solid writing skills to convey an important idea in a clear and precise way.

The only person who would read a journal paper and say that the the author has good writing skills is another academic.

No one outside of the research community would look at a typical journal paper and claim that the writing skills demonstrated are "solid".

Asimov once wrote about his own dilemma when he was ready to write up his PhD thesis: He had spent over a decade up to that point honing his writing skills, that he truly did not know if he had it in him to write as poorly as is needed for academia.

From my experience in academia:

1. Far too many people still prefer the passive voice over the active voice.

2. Far too many prefer to refer to themselves in the 3rd person.

3. Trying to explain how I arrived at an expression that took me weeks to derive was discounted and I was told to remove it by my advisor: As long as I wrote the starting point "any competent researcher should be able to derive it" (hint, probably half cannot).

4. Writing any background so that someone who is not already an expert can understand was strictly forbidden - always guaranteed to get a complaint by some reviewer or another. If it appears in a textbook or in another paper, do not think about including it in your paper. As a result, the only people who can understand your paper fully are those who have happened to read the same textbooks and papers you have. A poor new graduate student may need to look through several papers and a book or two to get the background needed for one section of your paper, even though you could have explained it all in a page or two. But nope - they may have to go scan over a hundred pages of material to have an idea.

Just a few I remember off the top of my head. Results may vary with discipline.

Re: Ask HN: How and where can I publish my research on AI as a college dropout?

#62

Post by leakydropout »

High school dropout with AI research cited in Nature.

You are going to have a hard road in front of you if you want to seriously make a dent in AI research. ML research is a bit more accessible to outsiders than AI research, because a lot of fundamental AI research can be a bit "out there", and is praised/discarded depending on the tenure/authority of the authors. But you probably already knew this. Just be careful to avoid (meta-)theoretical research that is close to futurism or philosophy without any credentials: It is easier to label outsiders as kooks.

First, create a blog. Write articles in a way that they are accessible to your skill/knowledge level one year ago. Get in the habit of writing and performing write-ups of your experiments. Share good articles on social media (Twitter, DataTau, /r/machinelearning).

(Co-)author a workshop paper for an AI or ML conference. Workshops have lower bars for acceptance. If anything, you'll receive valuable feedback.

Find an (assistant) professor who is an expert in a topic/subject you are interested in (don't go for Hinton in the first try). Familiarize yourself with their work and send them a polite short email asking for (search term) pointers on your research, their research, or related works.

Replicate as many research papers as you can. Implement the papers that don't have accompanying source code. Get in the habit of running many experiments. Post these on Github. Publish on social media, mentioning original authors. Mint a DOI.

Benchmarks (competitions) don't care about your credentials. Win one / do very well, and you'll create a platform for your research and methods, based purely on practical results and in compared to many other techniques. Papers based on winning results are fairly easy to write and do well impact-wise.

Really, don't worry about getting scooped, or making an error that embarrasses your supervisor for years. Leave that for the PhD's. Just get something out there, a Wordpress blog is enough. If your research is useless, no harm done (it won't get any cites if you managed to publish it in a journal). If your research has value, you'll have plenty of researchers read it and get inspired: This is your contribution to science (and, unfortunately, don't expect much cites to a blog post).

Optionally, solve the college dropout problem instead. If you want to dedicate yourself to being a researcher on AI, give your "startup" some rocket fuel and get a higher education in the field of data science/physics/computer science/AI. The synergy of young smart people and older wiser academics is something that is very hard to replicate on your own.

Re: Ask HN: How and where can I publish my research on AI as a college dropout?

#63

Post by leakydropout »

leakydropout wrote: post #62

High school dropout with AI research cited in Nature. You are going to have a hard road in front of you if you want to seriously make a dent in AI research. ML research is a bit more accessible to outsiders than AI research, because a lot of fundamental AI research can be a bit "out there", and is praised/discarded depending on the tenure/authority of the authors. But you probably already knew this. Just be careful t…

One I forgot is to work with either algorithms or datasets created by other researchers. Once I send an email asking for access to a certain dataset, describing the idea I had for it, and had a very famous researcher reply that they'd be interested in a cooperation.

The other side of this advice is to create a dataset that is interesting to other researchers.

Re: Ask HN: How and where can I publish my research on AI as a college dropout?

#64

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #54
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None works. Unaffiliated also works, or you can make something up (e.g. Ministry of Truth if you are Gilad Bracha). Submission management platforms are pretty generic, no one (in their right mind) rolls their own, so I wouldn't take the way they work as signals of intent.

For this one, the host university did roll their own, on the basis of some form-generating service that Google offers. Note that here I was speaking about a conference registration form, not a paper-submitting form.

Then that's just what they need to print attendance badges. They aren't going to not take your money because you have no proper affiliation. Put something plithy in there and you are sure to make some new friends at the conference.

Re: Ask HN: How and where can I publish my research on AI as a college dropout?

#65

Post by viksit »

Q6T46nT668w6i3m wrote: post #13

I really like this question. I’ll make a few brief points: - Most computer science research can be categorized into one of three forms: preprints published on arxiv or similar websites, papers published in conference proceedings, and source code. In artificial intelligence research, it’s typical for research, if there’s demand, to be promoted from a preprint, to a paper published in a conference proceeding, to public…

Curiously: what does that username mean!?

Re: Ask HN: How and where can I publish my research on AI as a college dropout?

#66

Post by supermdguy »

leakydropout wrote: post #62

High school dropout with AI research cited in Nature. You are going to have a hard road in front of you if you want to seriously make a dent in AI research. ML research is a bit more accessible to outsiders than AI research, because a lot of fundamental AI research can be a bit "out there", and is praised/discarded depending on the tenure/authority of the authors. But you probably already knew this. Just be careful t…

Those are some great tips.

Re: Ask HN: How and where can I publish my research on AI as a college dropout?

#67

Post by deong »

chrisseaton wrote: post #60
deong wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth mentioning that some of those standards may not be producing the best outcomes (see https://lemire.me/blog/2017/08/15/on-melissa-oneills-pcg-ran... , for example). In my own experience, I once wrote a paper in a much more casual and approachable style. I had what I felt was the same scientific rigor around the experiments and data, but tried to make the text more generally readable. I had Simpson's referen…

> I had Simpson's references sprinkled here and there, that sort of thing. I should offer to read your paper before criticising it, but I can't even begin to understand why you would think that references to a TV programme would help make a paper more readable. What if you don't happen to watch the Simpsons? Is the paper then even more opaque because none of the references mean anything? I quite like the bland academ…

There are parts of the standard academic paper that aren't really necessary for understanding it. You typically have background on the problem, for example. I can't say for certain I didn't lose a reader, but none of the references detracted from meaning in my view.

Re: Ask HN: How and where can I publish my research on AI as a college dropout?

#68

Post by plaidfuji »

BeetleB wrote: post #61
probably_wrong wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are publicly known. But I would say most paper requirements are "necessarily complicated", simply because science is hard. Writing a scientific paper requires both solid science (both good results and good scientific practices) and solid writing skills to convey an important idea in a clear and precise way. Mastering both aspects requires time and effort. An academic author is a person who made a job out of it.…

>Writing a scientific paper requires both solid science (both good results and good scientific practices) and solid writing skills to convey an important idea in a clear and precise way. The only person who would read a journal paper and say that the the author has good writing skills is another academic. No one outside of the research community would look at a typical journal paper and claim that the writing skills…

> The only person who would read a journal paper and say that the author has good writing skills is another academic.

You lack an understanding of the purpose and target audience of journal papers. Papers are written by experts, for experts, to be the most concise presentation of new, field-advancing facts as possible. Prior knowledge of basic, and even intermediate-level knowledge has to be assumed, otherwise it places too much burden on the authors.

You sound like a grad student who's sick of reading papers. I'm sorry, that part sucks. But eventually you don't have to anymore, and then you'll understand.

Re: Ask HN: How and where can I publish my research on AI as a college dropout?

#69

Post by throwawayaway12 »

BeetleB wrote: post #61
probably_wrong wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are publicly known. But I would say most paper requirements are "necessarily complicated", simply because science is hard. Writing a scientific paper requires both solid science (both good results and good scientific practices) and solid writing skills to convey an important idea in a clear and precise way. Mastering both aspects requires time and effort. An academic author is a person who made a job out of it.…

>Writing a scientific paper requires both solid science (both good results and good scientific practices) and solid writing skills to convey an important idea in a clear and precise way. The only person who would read a journal paper and say that the the author has good writing skills is another academic. No one outside of the research community would look at a typical journal paper and claim that the writing skills…

To be fair, only a few of these sound like actual problems.

>The only person who would read a journal paper and say that the the author has good writing skills is another academic. No one outside of the research community would look at a typical journal paper and claim that the writing skills demonstrated are "solid".

Scientific papers are written for people in the research community.

>3. Trying to explain how I arrived at an expression that took me weeks to derive was discounted and I was told to remove it by my advisor: As long as I wrote the starting point "any competent researcher should be able to derive it" (hint, probably half cannot).

This seems very context dependent.

>4. Writing any background so that someone who is not already an expert can understand was strictly forbidden - always guaranteed to get a complaint by some reviewer or another. If it appears in a textbook or in another paper, do not think about including it in your paper. As a result, the only people who can understand your paper fully are those who have happened to read the same textbooks and papers you have. A poor new graduate student may need to look through several papers and a book or two to get the background needed for one section of your paper, even though you could have explained it all in a page or two. But nope - they may have to go scan over a hundred pages of material to have an idea.

The poor new grad student should pour over multiple papers to get a solid foundation of the field. Most researchers do not want to read an epic tome to figure out how your research is novel.

I agree with your first two writing points though.

Re: Ask HN: How and where can I publish my research on AI as a college dropout?

#70

Post by mindcrime »

leakydropout wrote: post #63
leakydropout wrote: post #62

High school dropout with AI research cited in Nature. You are going to have a hard road in front of you if you want to seriously make a dent in AI research. ML research is a bit more accessible to outsiders than AI research, because a lot of fundamental AI research can be a bit "out there", and is praised/discarded depending on the tenure/authority of the authors. But you probably already knew this. Just be careful t…

One I forgot is to work with either algorithms or datasets created by other researchers. Once I send an email asking for access to a certain dataset, describing the idea I had for it, and had a very famous researcher reply that they'd be interested in a cooperation. The other side of this advice is to create a dataset that is interesting to other researchers.

Once I send an email asking for access to a certain dataset, describing the idea I had for it, and had a very famous researcher reply that they'd be interested in a cooperation.

I had a similar experience, as somebody who is also a "college dropout" and not formally associated with academia at all. I emailed a professor who wrote a book I was reading and asked for access to some of the datasets he cited in the book, and explained that I wanted to try re-implementing his technique using a newer tech stack (the book was from the 80's mind you) and then look at extending the ideas somewhat.

He quickly replied with the data, a pre-print of a new paper he was working on, and an invitation to keep him in the loop on my work. Not an outright invitation to collaborate, but I suspect if I achieve a useful result, the opportunity may well be there.

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