Distill: a modern machine learning journal

As a developer with a weaker background in mathematics, I face a language barrier with many modern algorithms. After lots of research I can understand and explain them in code, but I have no idea what your artistic-looking MathXML means.

Visualizations or algorithms described using code are much, much easier for me to understand and serve as a great starting point for unpacking the math explanations.

Re: Distill: a modern machine learning journal

#4

Post by curuinor » Mon, Mar 20, 2017, 5:44 PM UTC

colah3 wrote: post #2

Various announcements: Google Research: https://research.googleblog.com/2017/03/distill-supporting-c... DeepMind: https://deepmind.com/blog/distill-communicating-science-mach... OpenAI: https://openai.com/blog/Distill/ YC Research: http://blog.ycombinator.com/distill-an-interactive-visual-jo... Chris Olah: http://colah.github.io/posts/2017-03-Distill/

As I said in Rob's thingy, I hope you get the tenure committees and job committees, because they don't have to respect it but they're the ones you have to get to respect

Re: Distill: a modern machine learning journal

#5

Post by marcelsalathe » Mon, Mar 20, 2017, 5:55 PM UTC

curuinor wrote: post #4

colah3 wrote: post #2

Various announcements: Google Research: https://research.googleblog.com/2017/03/distill-supporting-c... DeepMind: https://deepmind.com/blog/distill-communicating-science-mach... OpenAI: https://openai.com/blog/Distill/ YC Research: http://blog.ycombinator.com/distill-an-interactive-visual-jo... Chris Olah: http://colah.github.io/posts/2017-03-Distill/

As I said in Rob's thingy, I hope you get the tenure committees and job committees, because they don't have to respect it but they're the ones you have to get to respect

I see comments like this all the time, and while what you say is correct, I think committees increasingly appreciate this sort of thing - frankly they have to or they will miss out on some of the most innovative people. There is plenty of "standard" already (nothing wrong with that of course).

With new things, what you need is at least one person on the committee to fight and convince the others why this new thing is awesome. As someone who is now on some of these committees, I would put all my weight behind something like this should I encounter it (assuming of course it has the relevant quality).

Re: Distill: a modern machine learning journal

#6

Post by rememberlenny » Mon, Mar 20, 2017, 5:56 PM UTC

I wish there was a way to subscribe to a weekly email related to this.

Re: Distill: a modern machine learning journal

#7

Post by colah3 » Mon, Mar 20, 2017, 5:59 PM UTC

curuinor wrote: post #4

colah3 wrote: post #2

Various announcements: Google Research: https://research.googleblog.com/2017/03/distill-supporting-c... DeepMind: https://deepmind.com/blog/distill-communicating-science-mach... OpenAI: https://openai.com/blog/Distill/ YC Research: http://blog.ycombinator.com/distill-an-interactive-visual-jo... Chris Olah: http://colah.github.io/posts/2017-03-Distill/

As I said in Rob's thingy, I hope you get the tenure committees and job committees, because they don't have to respect it but they're the ones you have to get to respect

All we can do is work hard to build academic support:

* In the last three weeks, we've had 80 outreach conversations with various stakeholders for Distill. The majority of these have been academic researchers. The response has been extremely positive.

* A number of ML faculty at Stanford / Berkeley / Toronto / Montreal are very excited and supportive of Distill.

* Distill's steering committee consists of recognized leaders in ML and data visualization.

* We've registered with the library of congres / CrossRef, dotting our "i"s and crossing our "t"s to be a serious journal. In some senses, we're more legitimate than some notable venues.

* The largest industry research groups institutionally support Distill.

My sense is that the academic community really wants to have something like this, if it can be done well. At the end of the day, we need to publish outstanding content and demonstrate that we're a high-quality venue.

Re: Distill: a modern machine learning journal

#8

Post by llimllib » Mon, Mar 20, 2017, 6:07 PM UTC

colah3 wrote: post #2

Various announcements: Google Research: https://research.googleblog.com/2017/03/distill-supporting-c... DeepMind: https://deepmind.com/blog/distill-communicating-science-mach... OpenAI: https://openai.com/blog/Distill/ YC Research: http://blog.ycombinator.com/distill-an-interactive-visual-jo... Chris Olah: http://colah.github.io/posts/2017-03-Distill/

Michael Nielsen: https://twitter.com/michael_nielsen/status/84386992317667328...

(follow the thread)

Re: Distill: a modern machine learning journal

#9

Post by dang » Mon, Mar 20, 2017, 6:11 PM UTC

YC Research's (and longtime HNer!) michael_nielsen wrote an announcement here: http://blog.ycombinator.com/distill-an-interactive-visual-jo.... Hopefully he'll participate in the discussion too.

Re: Distill: a modern machine learning journal

#10

Post by blackRust » Mon, Mar 20, 2017, 6:13 PM UTC

rememberlenny wrote: post #6

I wish there was a way to subscribe to a weekly email related to this.

There does seem to be an RSS feed: http://distill.pub/rss.xml Although it is not advertised on the website (I did view-source to find it).

Should you plug that in to IFTTT, Zapier, or something to that extent, you hopefully then have a weekly feed.

Though I do agree, an option to signup to updates directly on the website would be much better ;)