Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations

#61

Post by electricslpnsld » Fri, Jul 20, 2018, 6:17 PM UTC

username_123 wrote: post #59

electricslpnsld wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interviewed for a research position at Facebook reality labs, and it was the same process as an interview for an academic job. Give an hour talk about your research, meet with 6 researchers in hour chunks for the rest of the day. The process was similar for my previous industry research job as well. I can't speak to Facebook's other research arms or Google.

Good to know. So you you weren't asked any algorithmic leetcode-style questions or questions testing that you have basic knowledge of your field (e.g. tell me what a random forest is)? Doesn't sound like it. It was more focused on your research?

There weren't any whiteboard algorithm questions, no.

> questions testing that you have basic knowledge of your field

Not directly, but in discussing my research the interviewers drilled down into the contents of my papers, etc.

Re: Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations

#62

Post by xd2024 » Fri, Jul 20, 2018, 6:18 PM UTC

mliker wrote: post #57

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's research in computer vision has produced works like training a neutral net on large datasets in 1 hour, instance segmentation neural nets, and many more, and made the code and research public with nonrestrictive licenses. These are pushing the state of art! Check out the work yourself and then come back and criticize these scientists if you feel that their work is a net negative on the world.

wait, one hour? I thought it took two hours to train on a large dataset

Re: Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations

#63

Post by electricslpnsld » Fri, Jul 20, 2018, 6:23 PM UTC

eachro wrote: post #51

dharlow wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FAIR is part of FB. The reason why FB invests billions of dollars into FAIR is because it supports its business model and its democracy-wrecking product. FAIR researchers are complicit in the societal damage perpetrated by FB. They're cashing the (multi-million $) checks, and in exchange they work on making FB more powerful, by giving it better AI. When you talk to these guys (they're almost all guys), you realize th…

The $$ they can get from anywhere else in industry given how hot research level ML experience is (and how scarce this talent is). I imagine the appeal of FAIR is much more about the academic freedom. But sure the $$ doesnt hurt.

> given how hot research level ML experience is

Interestingly the head of the Pittsburgh lab here isn't even an ML researcher -- she is primarily known for her motion capture work and for running Disney Research.

Re: Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations

#64

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 20, 2018, 6:25 PM UTC

dharlow wrote: post #40

visarga wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be true, but don't confuse FAIR (their DL research lab) with FB. FAIR employs good people doing interesting and useful research. They promoted pytorch as a framework, and it is perhaps the best framework for non industrial applications. On a parallel line of thought, I prefer FB's React to Google's Angular. In both React and Pytorch I see the same elegant design. TensorFlow and Angular on the other part ar…

FAIR is part of FB. The reason why FB invests billions of dollars into FAIR is because it supports its business model and its democracy-wrecking product. FAIR researchers are complicit in the societal damage perpetrated by FB. They're cashing the (multi-million $) checks, and in exchange they work on making FB more powerful, by giving it better AI. When you talk to these guys (they're almost all guys), you realize th…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations

#65

Post by username_123 » Fri, Jul 20, 2018, 6:25 PM UTC

electricslpnsld wrote: post #61

username_123 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good to know. So you you weren't asked any algorithmic leetcode-style questions or questions testing that you have basic knowledge of your field (e.g. tell me what a random forest is)? Doesn't sound like it. It was more focused on your research?

There weren't any whiteboard algorithm questions, no. > questions testing that you have basic knowledge of your field Not directly, but in discussing my research the interviewers drilled down into the contents of my papers, etc.

Okay, thanks.

Re: Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations

#66

Post by whymauri » Fri, Jul 20, 2018, 6:29 PM UTC

electricslpnsld wrote: post #58

Kyragem wrote: post #22

As usual FB and other companies only collaborates with the "elite/Ivy League" schools. IMHO there are plenty of great researchers at non-elite schools and it would have been great if FB would start collaborating with those to reduce this vast concentration of academic research that has been happening for the past decade.

Half the schools on the list are publics, and none of them are Ivies.

How does being a public school mean a college cannot be elite? Pretty sure his point is these schools are elite within this field, and people from lesser known schools (not just public) are rarely given these chances.

Re: Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations

#67

Post by yaseer » Fri, Jul 20, 2018, 6:29 PM UTC

mliker wrote: post #57

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's research in computer vision has produced works like training a neutral net on large datasets in 1 hour, instance segmentation neural nets, and many more, and made the code and research public with nonrestrictive licenses. These are pushing the state of art! Check out the work yourself and then come back and criticize these scientists if you feel that their work is a net negative on the world.

Oh I am sure they add value.

The question as you so rightly point out is whether there is a net value added.

If we took their AI contributions and JS frameworks on one side of the equation, do you really think it balances the other side of the equation?

On that right side lies encouraging general disinformation leading to broken elections and even aiding genocide. Academic studies on happiness show using Facebook and Instagram correlates with poor mental health; that research has been replicated.

What product actively damages those that consume it?

Facebook is the digital equivalent of the Tobacco industry; good business that's bad for people.

Re: Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations

#68

Post by gimmeThaBeet » Fri, Jul 20, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

chriskanan wrote: post #21

To summarize why I think professors are going with this arrangement (in order): 1) Much less, if any, grant writing. A standard NSF $500K 3 year grant provides a lab about $100K per year (due to university overhead). This will support 1-2 PhD students on a pittance of a stipend. 2) Less teaching (1 course once a year) 3) Computing resources that are far greater than you could get a grant for. One NVIDIA DGX-1 is abou…

> Much less, if any, grant writing.

I don't know how it compares in software, I worked for a professor in undergrad who was in microelectronics. I was astonished at how much of their time was taken up by grant writing and applying for funding. The pressure for research professors to support their position was immense.

There's a lot of reasons to hate FB, a lot of reasons to be wary of what comes out of their research. But to castigate researchers that cash-spewing tech titans create a better environment and experience for researchers than the public and universities feels a bit asinine. I've known too many starving grad students, post docs, and non-tenure professors to prefer people subject themselves to the system we have rather than what a company like FB wants to provide.

Re: Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations

#69

Post by Fomite » Fri, Jul 20, 2018, 6:48 PM UTC

chriskanan wrote: post #21

To summarize why I think professors are going with this arrangement (in order): 1) Much less, if any, grant writing. A standard NSF $500K 3 year grant provides a lab about $100K per year (due to university overhead). This will support 1-2 PhD students on a pittance of a stipend. 2) Less teaching (1 course once a year) 3) Computing resources that are far greater than you could get a grant for. One NVIDIA DGX-1 is abou…

A couple notes:

1. Industry funding comes with its own set of hassles. And overhead is still a thing for industry funding - sometimes the overhead rate is less, but there's been a lot more pushback against this from universities (which I actually think is quite fair).

2. Being able to buy out teaching loads is a function of funding, not necessarily this funding

3. In many institutions, salaries are fixed - what this does is cover a percentage of your salary you don't have to cover from other mechanisms, or let you buy out teaching, as you note. It would be interesting to know if the dual FAIR appointments work like that or not.

While private funding is awesome, and these labs are in a very good position, it should be noted that in most cases in my experience between NSF/NIH-style funding and an industry grant, the government grants last longer, are more flexible, and less of a hassle administratively.

Re: Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations

#70

Post by Fomite » Fri, Jul 20, 2018, 6:53 PM UTC

mlthrowaway1953 wrote: post #16

chrisseaton wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how is it that state employees (Washington, California) are "co-employed" by an organization to do _exactly_ the research that their home universities work on They will work part-time for the university, and part-time for Facebook. I don't see why that's so shocking? Presumably the university only funds them part-time for part-time work, so it's not like they're not getting what they're paying for if that's what yo…

Most employer agreements have fairly draconian claims around IP. And I believe that many universities require their faculty to run consulting, etc. gigs through their legal teams, and the university gets a "right of first refusal" of sorts on the generated IP. Many academics get around this by claiming that they are doing research X at company (more applied, etc.) and research Y at the university (more theory, techni…

Yeah, at my university partnerships between academia and industry have very complex IP terms that depend on the scope of work, how much of it involves novel research, etc.

And there, there's the clarity of "I'm an employee of the university". With dual appointments...the agreement has to be complex. Either that, or really draconian based on Facebook throwing it's weight around and saying "Accept this, or we'll find another university that will."