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Apple to Start Publishing AI Research

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Re: Apple to Start Publishing AI Research

#81

Post by koalaman »

rjdevereux wrote: post #78
cmarschner wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bell Labs was special in that (a) they were building the largest system known to mankind at the time (an effort only rivaled by Manhattan snd Apollo projects) where they (b) couldn't use standard components but had to invent every piece by themselves, from the cables to amplifiers to satellites and lasers. Furthermore they were (c) very special in that they helped the government on certain projects like Manhattan, go…

Peter Thiel wrote an article along these lines.. http://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-for-l... "A monopoly like Google is different. Since it doesn't have to worry about competing with anyone, it has wider latitude to care about its workers, its products and its impact on the wider world. Google's motto—"Don't be evil"—is in part a branding ploy, but it is also characteristic of a kind of business t…

But Google had its culture before it got rich didn't it?

There are also a lot of small tech companies like 37 signals and fog creak that try to be ethical and and treat their employees well. I don't think thiel could argue that they are monopolies.

Nor frankly do I buy that Google is a monopoly. But that's beside the point.

Re: Apple to Start Publishing AI Research

#83

Post by ZenoArrow »

leereeves wrote: post #53
airesQ wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if anything can be considered successful when compared with Bell Labs. It is a very high bar to meet (given they mostly invented transistors, information theory, unix and c). The modern world is to great extent a byproduct of the experiment that was Bell Labs. Some laugh, and say that it was experiment that has gone awry.

And yet it didn't work out well for the company that funded it. Much like Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (inventors of the mouse, GUI, and object oriented programming), which Xerox failed to profit from.

> "And yet it didn't work out well for the company that funded it."

I'd suggest that was due to the anti-trust case against Bell more than anything else. For example, I believe AT&T were forbidden from selling Unix direct to consumers for many years, leading them to licence Unix to other entities (in the business and academic worlds).

Re: Apple to Start Publishing AI Research

#85

Post by sytelus »

hota_mazi wrote: post #40

> Researchers say among the reasons Apple has failed to keep pace is its unwillingness to allow its AI engineers to publish scientific papers, stymieing its ability to feed off wider advances in the field. I don't follow. How would preventing employees from writing papers would stop them from reading papers?

Modern AI research heavily depends on building work of others as well as having others build on your work. It's this virtuous cycle that is bringing all the advances we are seeing. Let's say someone at Apple had invented recurrent networks but they never published it. That would mean they would miss out on literally hundreds of researchers working on this, enhancing techniques in very critical ways and writing thousands of papers over the period of just few years that would feed in to this cycle. Many of these papers would contribute absolutely important enhancements to productionize things.

Much of the AI research currently starts with some seed idea like GAN which looks cool in small experiments but have tons of blind spots that needs to iron out. Unlike typical product efforts where you can probably work your way out through brute force engineering, advances in most AI related areas requires massive amount of collaboration, mathematical acrobatics, trial-and-error and cross-pollination across fields consuming multi-person-years before yielding fruits. In theory, Apple can still keep any silver bullets they find in the field secret but in practice such silver bullets are rare and advances are very incremental spanning over many years and many people.

Re: Apple to Start Publishing AI Research

#86

Post by deelowe »

Cyph0n wrote: post #13
deelowe wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And of course, Microsoft has been in business 41 years where as Google has been 18. I'm guessing publication rates between the two are comparable. I wouldn't be surprised if IBM were similar. All three are highly committed to research.

Regardless, comparing the number of papers is meaningless. A better metric is comparing how many significant advances resulted from research funded by the company. Using the second metric, the winner in all cases - without negotiation - would be AT&T Bell Labs.

Shame what happened to that company... :-( I have family who worked there during the hay days.

Re: Apple to Start Publishing AI Research

#87

Post by thewhitetulip »

leereeves wrote: post #53
airesQ wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if anything can be considered successful when compared with Bell Labs. It is a very high bar to meet (given they mostly invented transistors, information theory, unix and c). The modern world is to great extent a byproduct of the experiment that was Bell Labs. Some laugh, and say that it was experiment that has gone awry.

And yet it didn't work out well for the company that funded it. Much like Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (inventors of the mouse, GUI, and object oriented programming), which Xerox failed to profit from.

Xerox failed to profit from them because their management wasn't able to identify the amazing inventions made in their company. It is similar to what they say about Tesla, "when his generation wanted electric toasters, he invented electric cars and wireless electricity"

Re: Apple to Start Publishing AI Research

#90

Post by KKKKkkkk1 »

amelius wrote: post #4

Of course! What researcher would want to work for a company that prohibits scientific publications? I've always been amazed by their attitude. Look at Microsoft Research, and their enormous scientific output over the years. IBM and Google look bleak by comparison, and Apple is not even on the chart.

Unfortunately, my prior reply here was flagged, but I'd like to try again. Here's a quote from Craig Federighi, senior VP of software engineering, less than half a year ago:

“Our practices tend to reinforce a natural selection bias — those who are interested in working as a team to deliver a great product versus those whose primary motivation is publishing,” says Federighi.

https://backchannel.com/an-exclusive-look-at-how-ai-and-mach...

In my opinion, this gives you a view of the thinking that goes inside Apple. Publishing papers correlates negatively with being a team player and delivering great products, and here Apple is on record as saying that they do not want that sort of people working there.

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