I misunderstood the title as being disappointed that they won second place (as opposed to first place), rather than being disappointed that they won an award at all.
InstaHide Disappointingly Wins Bell Labs Prize, 2nd Place
21–30 of 46 posts
Re: InstaHide Disappointingly Wins Bell Labs Prize, 2nd Place
#22It was a little bit shocking to me how obviously weak the image obfuscation performed is when you think about it.
Randomizing the sign is the same as eradicating 1 single bit out of however many were used to represent each sample. No matter how random it looks, there is no way removing 1/32 or 1/64 of the information in the image offers any actual security for something where samples are as highly correlated as in image data.
And using a non-cryptographic PRNG for security purposes... I'd really, really expect more from anybody working on privacy research.
Re: InstaHide Disappointingly Wins Bell Labs Prize, 2nd Place
#23The article resonates with me a lot, and reminded of the couple of years of personal experience of applied machine learning in another field of science; because the points made are exactly what I encountered then and made me quit my job. There is a lot of machine learning snake oil out there, even in the most prestigious journals. The issue is that most people wouldn't know about it until they actually try to reprodu…
> There is a lot of machine learning snake oil out there, even in the most prestigious journals.
I'm also deep in that industry, and can confirm this is the case. Even for research coming out of the biggest names: FB, Google, etc.
The problem of "story over substance" has been observed by many; it even has a name in the context of ML, the "Mummy Effect" [0].
Like you, I'm segueing out of "AI" because of the unfavourable signal-to-noise ratio. Frustrating indeed, but life is too short to try to outcompete pocketless BS generators, or clean up their mess on my dime.
[0] https://rare-technologies.com/mummy-effect-bridging-gap-betw...
Re: InstaHide Disappointingly Wins Bell Labs Prize, 2nd Place
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Props to you for being so willing to accept thoughtful criticism. No matter how good the criticism is, that’s really hard.
Thoughtful criticism is like having good feedback. It should not be hard to receive that. It starts becoming hard when there are ulterior motives or when the criticism actually isn’t valid but getting a lot of attention. Most constructive feedback is actually best shared in private as well.
There is time for private feedback (before publication) and time for public feedback/discussion (after)
Re: InstaHide Disappointingly Wins Bell Labs Prize, 2nd Place
#25> "They ... haven't yet (after a month) accepted our break on their Challenge leaderboard." I think this is the most abhorrent aspect: it's not in the spirit of science to arbitrarily delay findings
No it is not. Given the rest of the description I find it completely consistent with their modus operandi.
Anyway, why delaying results should be considered the worst transgression? I think dishonesty is the biggest problem here.
Re: InstaHide Disappointingly Wins Bell Labs Prize, 2nd Place
#26Please, don't call it "bad science".
Science was never meant to happen here, this is just plain exercise in dishonesty.
"Bad science" is a real thing which happens when somebody tries to "do science" but fails.
Re: InstaHide Disappointingly Wins Bell Labs Prize, 2nd Place
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Props to you for being so willing to accept thoughtful criticism. No matter how good the criticism is, that’s really hard.
Thoughtful criticism is like having good feedback. It should not be hard to receive that. It starts becoming hard when there are ulterior motives or when the criticism actually isn’t valid but getting a lot of attention. Most constructive feedback is actually best shared in private as well.
Shouldn’t be hard but still can be. It’s like misinterpreting signs of interest from someone until that conversation on the elevator ride down after work on a Friday. Thoughtful, private, polite, direct and final.
Re: InstaHide Disappointingly Wins Bell Labs Prize, 2nd Place
#28Reminds me of the conversation recently about the amnesia project. As jacquesm said in the top post: Anonymization is a hard problem.
Re: InstaHide Disappointingly Wins Bell Labs Prize, 2nd Place
#29Please, don't call it "bad science". Science was never meant to happen here, this is just plain exercise in dishonesty. "Bad science" is a real thing which happens when somebody tries to "do science" but fails.
There's a book and UK newspaper column series called "bad science". It's not about people with good intentions failing.
> Ben Goldacre’s wise and witty bestseller, shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, lifts the lid on quack doctors, flaky statistics, scaremongering journalists and evil pharmaceutical corporations.
> Full spleen and satire, Ben Goldacre takes us on a hilarious, invigorating and ultimately alarming journey through the bad science we are fed daily by hacks and quacks.
Re: InstaHide Disappointingly Wins Bell Labs Prize, 2nd Place
#30It was a little bit shocking to me how obviously weak the image obfuscation performed is when you think about it. Randomizing the sign is the same as eradicating 1 single bit out of however many were used to represent each sample. No matter how random it looks , there is no way removing 1/32 or 1/64 of the information in the image offers any actual security for something where samples are as highly correlated as in i…
This is a really interesting way of putting it. Is the presence of e.g. 31/32 of the original data the only reason InstaHide can train a model at all? I haven’t read the original paper, but it seems very possible that the entire approach runs into a fundamental tradeoff.