Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 270 posts

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#161

Post by nurettin »

gormo2 wrote: post #141
pron wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Deep learning is not a simple statistical clustering algorithm. What is it, then? In the 60s people used backpropagation to train neural networks. NN + BP is a very simple statistical clustering algorithm. I know that when I worked on neural networks in the 90s we still used backpropagation. Are they using something different now?

>Are they using something different now? Yes, why else do you think we've had such breakthroughs in the past six years?

They are mostly using the same Lenet-5 on modern hardware, just refined to converge better for some tasks.

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#162

Post by kbart »

JimDabell wrote: post #160
kbart wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What would have actually happened if Apple didn't make the iPhone?" I bet that nothing much different, another company would have made one in 1-2 years timeframe. The idea of "hand phone-computer" was very old (decades in sci-fi and real products in nineties called "PDA"). It just happened that around the time when Apple made the first iPhone, tech was advanced and cheap enough for the mass market. To sum up, it was…

You're forgetting the massive impact the iPhone had on the mobile web. Before the iPhone was released, the mobile web was a mixture of rudimentary WAP/WML, or if you were lucky awful browsers that tried to render HTML. Everybody hated it. Then the iPhone was released and it had a web browser in the same ballpark as real desktop browsers. What's more, WebKit was open-source. In next to no time, all the major phone ven…

I'm not arguing that smartphone was a huge step forward, just saying that it was only a matter of "when" and "who" not "if". Also, as for mobile web boom, I think the introduction of 3g was the key factor, there was only so much you could do with GPRS/WAP..

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#163

Post by HNridiculous »

thr0waway1239 wrote: post #138

I was starting to get worried about the data collection already happening individually at these big companies. Now that they have announced a partnership which potentially combines all this data together, I feel so much better! The funny thing is, the companies are ALWAYS going to put a positive spin on this. Not very different from the WhatsApp "we won't show ads, ever" messaging. Now I am in the camp which says "Fo…

This has nothing to do with data collection or any other crazy conspiracy theories you are trying to peddle such as Open AI being intentionally excluded etc.

Hell half of your comment does not even makes any sense.

Allowing OpenAI to do "Data audit" LOL are you seriously high on drugs. Do you know what OpenAI is or does?? Nothing with Auditing!

And yet this is the most upvoted comment in this thread along with second one where people have another set of crazy theories about Apple being "magically" superior.

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#164

Post by Taek »

thr0waway1239 wrote: post #138

I was starting to get worried about the data collection already happening individually at these big companies. Now that they have announced a partnership which potentially combines all this data together, I feel so much better! The funny thing is, the companies are ALWAYS going to put a positive spin on this. Not very different from the WhatsApp "we won't show ads, ever" messaging. Now I am in the camp which says "Fo…

Modern machine learning depends heavily on data. If you have 100x the data, your algorithm is going to outperform a superior algorithm in most cases, because the data is the source of the intelligence.

It's a big, scary barrier for startups, for innovation, and we're running the risk of creating data superpowers that can't be competed with. Some algorithms don't perform well until they have a threshold of data. When that threshold is attainable only by a company with XXX million users, you inherently get a system where only those companies can innovate on the most cutting edge in machine learning.

That's a bad thing for us, especially if we find those companies turning against us. Did Google start putting a liberal spin on search results to try to influence the election? We don't know! But we do know that they are using their position to manipulate ISIS recruitment, which means they aren't afraid to get their hands dirty with this kind of stuff. THERE IS NO OVERSIGHT! And you aren't going to get a search engine that can come close to competing with Google unless you can find a way to match their data volume before you have something competitive. It's a massive barrier.

Facebook is enjoying the same sort of entrenchment. I've switched away from Facebook, and now I've lost touch with a lot of friends. They are my friends, why can't I export them? Why can't I export the data that belongs to me, and use it in some open-source format that allows me to reap the benefits of all the work that I spent tracking them down inside of Facebook's private garden?

As a society, we need to start addressing these things, or we are going to end up with Internet giants that we don't have the means to get rid of, and that aren't at risk of being out-competed.

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#165

Post by coldtea »

wstrange wrote: post #118
coldtea wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>* I can think you can see the point I'm making: yes, Apple has a big pile of cash, a fat amount of profit and high stock value. However, Alphabet its influence and reach is far, far beyond that of Apple. Its just not as flashy & visible.* Yeah, Alphabet is bigger in every way that counts except those two inconsequential things for companies: revenue and profit.

The iPhone exploited a rift in the space-time fabric. The right features at the right time, everybody had to have one and the margins are totally insane. That can't last. The market is nearing saturation, and competitive pressures will erode margins. It seems unlikely they will have another product that generates as much cash as the iPhone. They will still be a very profitable company, but perhaps not the cash printi…

The exact same thing holds for Google Search. They have not generated any product that brings as much cash as search ads (not even close) -- and that's since 1998 or so.

Google Docs, Google +, Google Glass (lol) etc never went anywhere much, revenue wise, and even Android is mostly a loss as far as Google is concerned, even including licenses and mobile ads (makes a good buck for Samsung though).

> The market is nearing saturation, and competitive pressures will erode margins.

They serve the top end of the market (neither feature phones, not "just give me some smartphone free with the contract") where there are not much competitive pressures and they've been milking more profit than all Android shops combined at that. Besides, that we have been kept hearing since 2008 when Android appeared, and it hasn't even happened in the desktop/laptop space (the sell 5-10% of PCs and get 45% of the PC profits).

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#166

Post by KON_Air »

xenobioticants wrote: post #84
j1vms wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether right or wrong, I think it's good to keep in mind that Apple has, by far the highest quarterly profit and total asset value, compared to any of these companies - it really is a giant among giants. Alphabet certainly has an excellent future outlook (reflected in the markets), but its current financial state still pales in comparison to Apple. Taking this into account, I figure Apple thinks twice and thrice bef…

'it really is a giant among giants.' You're confused. That would be Alphabet, not Apple. To put it in perspective for you, Google has: ~90% of the search market ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/216573/worldwide-market-... ) ~90% of the smartphone market ( https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/18/gartner-androids-smartphon... ) ~50% of the online advertisement market ( http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Google-Still-Domin…

Then it shall finally be the year of windows on mobiles.

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#167

Post by tmalsburg2 »

What's the purpose of this initiative? Sharing technology? Hardly. The goal is probably to shape the discourse on AI and its implications on society and the individual in a way that's favorable for these companies. In other words, they will try to preempt, counter, and suppress criticism of their business models, i.e. the AI exploitation of user data in the service of advertisers and others. It's pretty obvious why Apple is not on board. They have previously taken the position that user data should be left alone and therefore pose a threat to Google, Facebook et al. whose financial success is solely built on the extraction of information from users. This has nothing to do with Apple falling behind technologically.

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#168

Post by patkai »

thr0waway1239 wrote: post #138

I was starting to get worried about the data collection already happening individually at these big companies. Now that they have announced a partnership which potentially combines all this data together, I feel so much better! The funny thing is, the companies are ALWAYS going to put a positive spin on this. Not very different from the WhatsApp "we won't show ads, ever" messaging. Now I am in the camp which says "Fo…

You just made me think about a few issues: 1. wouldn't these five be a cute quasi monopoly? (is pentapoly a word?) 2. isn't it brilliant how "they" - including many others, like Musk - make a big fuss about AI that is mostly already open and published, while what we should worry about is data? 3. is there any hope for an open society when most of us nerds - who are supposed to be all rebellious, undergroundy, security aware etc - with a lot of power to build the future can't wait to run into the arms of these big guys? We could use more @dhh type opinions.

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#169

Post by Taek »

itg wrote: post #40
radicaldreamer wrote: post #34

Seems like it's oriented toward lobbying and keeping AI from being regulated.

Good, there's enough fear mongering about it when we don't even know where to start when it comes to building an AGI.

There's a lot to be afraid of even if you don't believe that AGI is achieveable. For example, Google has openly talked about manipulating search results to steer potential ISIS recruits away from ISIS. That's a power that they are using without oversight, and who's to say that they aren't doing similar things to influence the outcome of the US national election (they have a vested interest in seeing Hillary win - Hillary is much better for their bottom line than any other candidate).

The giants are unparalleled in terms of their access to data, and that's something alternatives and competitors can't compete with. It's also clear that for machine learning, having more data is the most effective way to get better results. Stronger algorithms are only going to go so far if your competitor has three or four orders of magnitude more data and computational power.

And that's the scale we are looking at with companies like Facebook and Google.

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#170

Post by Taek »

treehau5 wrote: post #91
itg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good, there's enough fear mongering about it when we don't even know where to start when it comes to building an AGI.

It's not fear mongering. Some of the ideas I hear from people on this forum, from academia, and the likes are just downright terrifying, and we don't even know what future AI will be capable of. We have to decide as a society, and decide really soon how far we are willing to take AI research. We built the nuclear bomb, but we decided when to stop. We didn't build more advanced bombs that could level entire providence…

AI is not a genie that can be kept in a bottle. Making a nuclear bomb is a huge engineering effort. You need to build huge facilities, acquire rare resources, and potentially test it somehow. It takes a lot of energy to get there.

Software on the other hand, my computer is running tens of millions of lines of code right now, and for stuff with heavy utility there's not much the government can do to get in the way. Cryptography is a great example of this. Cryptography used to be regulated, but because it's easy to pass around code + binaries + keys there was really nothing the government could do to stop people from using it. So it was deregulated, as an admission that if you banned cryptography, you get a population without it pitted against criminals who do have it.

I'm guessing that AI will end up much the same way. You do need a lot of data, certainly a lot more than you need to get strong encryption, but data is ultimately easy to move around compared to nuclear manufacturing facilities. And it's even more open when you consider how much data is available that might be useful to an AGI. If you give a human 500,000,000 hours to read + process + innovate using just Wikipedia, you are going to get something impressive. An AGI has access to any page that's reachable from a URL bar, and that data is not something that needs to be passed around with the AGI codebase.

Granted, I personally believe that AGIs are 30+ years away, and I don't think that Wikipedia is enough data for something like a competitive NLP machine using modern technology, but I think that's the direction we will be moving in. We should accept today that AI will be a part of the future, and prepare for the inevitability rather than try to run from it.

Post reply on HN