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

Google to open artificial intelligence lab in Princeton

princeton.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 42 posts

Re: Google to open artificial intelligence lab in Princeton

#21

Post by mav3rick »

Fomite wrote: post #18
throwawayjava wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want collaboration and access to great minds, not influence. Also, every if they did want influence, the ivy pay would make even more sense bc the ivy tail wags the academic dog. Better to influence a generation of future faculty than one Dept of current ones...

"Collaboration and access to great minds" comes from influence. As does the opportunity to shape postdocs and graduate students - the generation of future faculty you're talking about.

The influence is no good if the research isn't high quality. There are other initiatives besides labs by Google.

Re: Google to open artificial intelligence lab in Princeton

#22

Post by hbosch »

mlevental wrote: post #2

look I get it - ivies attract best and brightest and the incentive structure for businesses is such that things like this make sense (as a recruitment tool) but why not drop this kind of program on a good-not-ivy state school? there are so many to pick from (um Ann arbor, ut Austin, UF, stonybrook, CUNY, etc). it's just strikes me as very similar to wealthy donors donating back to ivies - like c'mon what is marginal…

In my opinion, anything far away from Stanford and Berkeley is good enough.

Re: Google to open artificial intelligence lab in Princeton

#24

Post by screye »

mav3rick wrote: post #12
aetimmes wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably some long-term strategizing going on here, as well. The likelihood of a CS undergrad from Princeton creating their own startup that cuts into Alphabet's margins somewhere is much higher than the probability of a student from a state school doing the same. To speak nothing of the professors...

That most likely has nothing to do with it. These sort of things happen with previous relationships of some faculty with academics inside Google. There is no "long term" play of let's quash the competitors. Higher ranked schools are often better at research as well, you can get more bang for your buck than lesser ranked schools.

> Higher ranked schools are often better at research as well, you can get more bang for your buck than lesser ranked schools.

Just to be clear, Princeton ranks close to 15-20th in CS. Many state schools do out rank Princeton in CS and they do not have such labs yet.

I can understand if IAS or the Math department was the main reason to open a lab there. But, if it was quality of CS faculty that exclusively factored into the decision, then there would be other state schools in the line ahead of Princeton.

Re: Google to open artificial intelligence lab in Princeton

#25

Post by wbl »

screye wrote: post #24
mav3rick wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That most likely has nothing to do with it. These sort of things happen with previous relationships of some faculty with academics inside Google. There is no "long term" play of let's quash the competitors. Higher ranked schools are often better at research as well, you can get more bang for your buck than lesser ranked schools.

> Higher ranked schools are often better at research as well, you can get more bang for your buck than lesser ranked schools. Just to be clear, Princeton ranks close to 15-20th in CS. Many state schools do out rank Princeton in CS and they do not have such labs yet. I can understand if IAS or the Math department was the main reason to open a lab there. But, if it was quality of CS faculty that exclusively factored in…

Princeton is a tiny school which still has Tarjan and Appel. And it's a half hour ride from NYC.

Re: Google to open artificial intelligence lab in Princeton

#26

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

mlevental wrote: post #2

look I get it - ivies attract best and brightest and the incentive structure for businesses is such that things like this make sense (as a recruitment tool) but why not drop this kind of program on a good-not-ivy state school? there are so many to pick from (um Ann arbor, ut Austin, UF, stonybrook, CUNY, etc). it's just strikes me as very similar to wealthy donors donating back to ivies - like c'mon what is marginal…

They're jealous that MIT has two AI labs.

Re: Google to open artificial intelligence lab in Princeton

#27

Post by whymauri »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #26
mlevental wrote: post #2

look I get it - ivies attract best and brightest and the incentive structure for businesses is such that things like this make sense (as a recruitment tool) but why not drop this kind of program on a good-not-ivy state school? there are so many to pick from (um Ann arbor, ut Austin, UF, stonybrook, CUNY, etc). it's just strikes me as very similar to wealthy donors donating back to ivies - like c'mon what is marginal…

They're jealous that MIT has two AI labs.

Are you referring to CSAIL and the MIT-IBM Lab? Or is there another one I don't know about.

Re: Google to open artificial intelligence lab in Princeton

#28

Post by fluxty »

mlevental wrote: post #2

look I get it - ivies attract best and brightest and the incentive structure for businesses is such that things like this make sense (as a recruitment tool) but why not drop this kind of program on a good-not-ivy state school? there are so many to pick from (um Ann arbor, ut Austin, UF, stonybrook, CUNY, etc). it's just strikes me as very similar to wealthy donors donating back to ivies - like c'mon what is marginal…

It is kind of interesting, given that Princeton's not really at the top in AI (but it would be difficult to be, because they're so tiny--departments like Berkeley have a huge number of AI faculty).

But, at the same time, Google already has connections with Princeton, both through these individual profs and through the NY Tech campus (they shared an office with Google before moving to Roosevelt Island).

It is kind of interesting in the trend of professors being more connected with industry and spending time actually working at tech companies. It's both interesting from the perspective of engagement (profs can work on real problems) and frightening from the prospective of independence--the companies will inevitably sway which problems profs work on, and of course their students won't enjoy their advisors' attention being scattered elsewhere.

Re: Google to open artificial intelligence lab in Princeton

#29

Post by [deleted] »

fluxty wrote: post #28
mlevental wrote: post #2

look I get it - ivies attract best and brightest and the incentive structure for businesses is such that things like this make sense (as a recruitment tool) but why not drop this kind of program on a good-not-ivy state school? there are so many to pick from (um Ann arbor, ut Austin, UF, stonybrook, CUNY, etc). it's just strikes me as very similar to wealthy donors donating back to ivies - like c'mon what is marginal…

It is kind of interesting, given that Princeton's not really at the top in AI (but it would be difficult to be, because they're so tiny--departments like Berkeley have a huge number of AI faculty). But, at the same time, Google already has connections with Princeton, both through these individual profs and through the NY Tech campus (they shared an office with Google before moving to Roosevelt Island). It is kind of…

[deleted]

Re: Google to open artificial intelligence lab in Princeton

#30

Post by tnecniv »

wbl wrote: post #25
screye wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Higher ranked schools are often better at research as well, you can get more bang for your buck than lesser ranked schools. Just to be clear, Princeton ranks close to 15-20th in CS. Many state schools do out rank Princeton in CS and they do not have such labs yet. I can understand if IAS or the Math department was the main reason to open a lab there. But, if it was quality of CS faculty that exclusively factored in…

Princeton is a tiny school which still has Tarjan and Appel. And it's a half hour ride from NYC.

I'd be very interested to know the route you are taking to get to/from NYC then.
Post reply on HN