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Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations

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Re: Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations

#41

Post by te_chris »

throwawayjava wrote: post #36
te_chris wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> By choosing to work with facebook you're literally working for a company that has stoked mob killings and enabled genocide. Okay, granted. > Anyone working there needs to be called out. I'll take this seriously when you start "calling out" IBM employees for working for a company that in the past enabled genocide. I'm unsure how research on "visual and robot learning" or on "geometric 3D reasoning" is supposed to be…

Yes, that is my advice! Gald I wasn't indirect.

Facebook is an evil company that has harnessed and unleashed an ugliness in humanity which they take no responsibility for and is literally getting people killed.

We can't all be utilitarians.

Re: Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations

#42

Post by astazangasta »

mikert5671 wrote: post #6
naturalgradient wrote: post #4

I understand the call of money but I cannot help but feel very negatively towards academics doing this with facebook of all organisations. After recent events, they cannot pretend not to know the impact and damage their work may have here. Excusing yourself with "I am just a researcher, I don't have anything to do with how my work is used" is just not good enough any more. I would categorically reject any collaborati…

FB and Google are the only ones pushing the industry forward. The huge amount of data and computing power is what brings these researchers, its not all about money. In the long run the scientific advancements from these companies is a much higher positive than the negatives they have in the present.

This is incorrect, in my opinion. FB and Google are where capital is currently concentrated in the software industry; therefore, they are able to hire a lot of the top software talent out there. This talent is responsible for pushing the industry forward, and it often does so in a manner that is largely company-agnostic. This is why we get React help pages telling us to use Enzyme from AirBnb for running tests - because the work is being done by software developers who are building general infrastructure for the web, and who would probably end up doing the same basic work regardless of who was paying their salaries.

It's best to think of Silicon Valley as two entities: a mass of technology workers who build software, and a financial extraction function that attempts to extract value from the work they do.

Re: Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations

#43

Post by taneq »

naturalgradient wrote: post #4

I understand the call of money but I cannot help but feel very negatively towards academics doing this with facebook of all organisations. After recent events, they cannot pretend not to know the impact and damage their work may have here. Excusing yourself with "I am just a researcher, I don't have anything to do with how my work is used" is just not good enough any more. I would categorically reject any collaborati…

It's a bit of a poisoned grail, though. On the one hand, you're selling your soul. On the other hand, they have data beyond your wildest dreams and you can use it all for anything as long as it might make money.

Would you take that offer? Would I? Probably not. But I can see the appeal, and plenty of people wouldn't hesitate.

Re: Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations

#44

Post by edhu2017 »

username_123 wrote: post #28

What level are these professors being hired at within Facebook? What sort of base salaries, stock options do they command? Any idea on total compensation numbers here? With them being part-time professors what are their university salaries like? In total compensation between industry and university I'd imagine this would be a good deal. Lastly, how does recruiting work here? I assume they don’t make these people go t…

Total compensation: Definitely a wide range, but a few hundred K would be the median. Recruiting: one of my labmates flat out refused to do algorithmic interviews for a research position and the company still gave him an offer. Your projects, papers, and ability to demonstrate your understanding of research topics are far more important then your ability to solve a small, defined problem in 45 minutes.

Re: Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations

#45

Post by nemild »

A related quote from this fascinating interview with Jonathan Tow (media researcher)[1] on FB research:

> Often, these companies [like FB] are open to research partnerships and things, but it’s always on their terms. If you do research with them, you’re dealing with IP issues, you’re signing over the rights to the research. It has to be reviewed completely and vetted by their legal process. They often handpick researchers that help them and help their purpose and help their cause — they maybe throw in some sprinkles of criticism. I understand why they would be hesitant to want to work with people like me.

[1] http://www.niemanlab.org/2018/02/news-in-a-disintegrating-re...

Re: Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations

#46

Post by hackinthebochs »

naturalgradient wrote: post #8
mikert5671 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FB and Google are the only ones pushing the industry forward. The huge amount of data and computing power is what brings these researchers, its not all about money. In the long run the scientific advancements from these companies is a much higher positive than the negatives they have in the present.

Any researcher in this area worth their salt can easily get cloud credit grants and collaborations from Google, Microsoft, Amazon. I pose if you go to Facebook, it's very much about money.

What actions by Facebook do you see as particularly heinous above what's done at Google?

Re: Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations

#48

Post by colmvp »

While I dislike FB, I don't blame researchers/profs for joining FB when the numerous advantages for joining them dwarf what you could get at a lot of other institutions.

Reminds me of how on the one hand it sucks that certain talented engineers/designers work for ad-driven companies, but at the end of the day the compensation is simply on another level compared to working for more benevolent causes.

Re: Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations

#49

Post by hackinthebochs »

te_chris wrote: post #31
throwawayjava wrote: post #26

I think Facebook hate is clouding out reasonability in this thread. E.g., there's even a comment asserting that people who collaborate with facebook (a.k.a., Jessica Hodgins, Andrea Vedaldi, and Jitendra Malik) are "not worth their salt" (?!?!?!). IDK. Maybe -- just possibly -- there do exist researchers who have their choice of funding spigots and are choosing to work with Facebook. Either that or HN has some damn h…

[flagged]

This is like blaming the internet for any type of hate speech disseminated through the internet. I just can't make sense of it.

Re: Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations

#50

Post by tedsanders »

te_chris wrote: post #31
throwawayjava wrote: post #26

I think Facebook hate is clouding out reasonability in this thread. E.g., there's even a comment asserting that people who collaborate with facebook (a.k.a., Jessica Hodgins, Andrea Vedaldi, and Jitendra Malik) are "not worth their salt" (?!?!?!). IDK. Maybe -- just possibly -- there do exist researchers who have their choice of funding spigots and are choosing to work with Facebook. Either that or HN has some damn h…

[flagged]

Serious question: Is it wrong to work for organizations that have done horrible things? The US government has plenty of blood on its hands from the past few centuries. Yet I don't think it follows that everyone should quit. Rather, if you're a moral person, it seems better to think about you can enact positive change from within, rather than seeking to morally disentangle yourself from an organization you find unethical and thereby allowing it to become even more unethical.

And of course, the US governement is different from Facebook in many ways. Perhaps the same logic of not working for them doesn't apply. But if it doesn't, I think it would be helpful to explain why.

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