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Is Google’s AI research about to implode?

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Re: Is Google’s AI research about to implode?

#71

Post by auggierose »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #67
Rochus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of us are replaceable That's a management illusion. Try to replace e.g. someone like Fabrice Bellard, Mike Pall or Claude Shannon. Of course such things happen in big companies, but mostly because management is too limited to properly assess the true value of certain individuals. But the article is actually about a different topic.

That's an ego illusion. It hurts to admit that we're not replaceable, but we are. The job might not get done as well, or done in a different way than we'd do it, but it'll still get done.

That's maybe true for YOUR job. The more a job has a well-defined description, the truer your statement is.

Re: Is Google’s AI research about to implode?

#72

Post by jfindley »

DavidSumpter wrote: post #22
mantap wrote: post #6

Feels like the author has an axe to grind. Research isn't about knowing all the answers or always being successful. Negative results are just as important as positive ones. Author does not even mention the recent protein folding result.

I am the author. I think it is interesting with this "axe to grind" response (there was another above). I am an independent researcher, a professor at a University. And I have absolutely no reason to be disappointed with Google. My knowledge of this subject goes considerably deeper than I write in the article, but it is important to get the points across in an easy to follow manner. Thus I use certain literary device…

I'm not certain that claiming deep knowledge of the subject and handwaving about literary devices is a terribly useful response when you write an article suggesting decline while completely ignoring a bunch of significant more recent developments. That's not a literary device, that's cherry-picking facts to support a preconceived conclusion.

Paying more attention to other, more recent, developments might also have helped you avoid writing a paragraph where you talk about deepmind not being able to play games where it needs to perform multiple actions to obtain a reward - I think deepmind managing to beat professional starcraft players is clear evidence that this conclusion is questionable at best.

Re: Is Google’s AI research about to implode?

#73

Post by paulsutter »

dealforager wrote: post #9

No. Every time someone makes a big stink about someone getting fired at one of the top tech companies, it is promptly followed by an article like this. A trillion dollar company that hires thousands of researchers and consistently produces some of the highest quality research with real results is not going to implode from one person being gone. Another pattern I've seen is someone leaving a company, followed by writi…

Of general interest, Jeff Dean’s comment on why the Gebru paper didn’t meet Google’s publication guidelines:

“Highlighting risks without pointing out methods for researchers and developers to understand and mitigate those risks misses the mark on helping with these problems”

from https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f2kYWDXwhzYnq8ebVtuk9CqQ...

Re: Is Google’s AI research about to implode?

#74

Post by ramblerman »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #67
Rochus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of us are replaceable That's a management illusion. Try to replace e.g. someone like Fabrice Bellard, Mike Pall or Claude Shannon. Of course such things happen in big companies, but mostly because management is too limited to properly assess the true value of certain individuals. But the article is actually about a different topic.

That's an ego illusion. It hurts to admit that we're not replaceable, but we are. The job might not get done as well, or done in a different way than we'd do it, but it'll still get done.

It's certainly true for most of us but not the names the op mentioned.

I would argue the real ego resistance is in not accepting such people exist.

Re: Is Google’s AI research about to implode?

#75

Post by eli_gottlieb »

dealforager wrote: post #9

No. Every time someone makes a big stink about someone getting fired at one of the top tech companies, it is promptly followed by an article like this. A trillion dollar company that hires thousands of researchers and consistently produces some of the highest quality research with real results is not going to implode from one person being gone. Another pattern I've seen is someone leaving a company, followed by writi…

>All of us are replaceable

This sounds more like a reason to unionize than a reason to celebrate a firing.

Re: Is Google’s AI research about to implode?

#76

Post by the-dude »

DavidSumpter wrote: post #28
im3w1l wrote: post #8

Sounds like the criticism is basically that Google's screwdriver can't be used to hammer in nails.

More like they are using a hammer to put screw in the wall. But close enough :-)

My dad called this an American screwdriver.

Re: Is Google’s AI research about to implode?

#77

Post by tinyhouse »

The problem is that AI etichs research is an esetoric academic field that has little real value in indistry. I will explain.

Take the famous paper the article mentions. I read the paper. It's full of nonsense. It talks about environmental costs of training huge models. Give me a break. Then the problem with the biased datasets. Yes, everyone knows if you train on racist text you gonna get a racist LM. AI researchers are not stupid. They don't need etichs research to figure this out. The paper even gives an example of an Arab guy who got arrested because the Israeli police used an MT system that made a mistake in translation. The problem is not AI, the problem is the stupidity of the Israeli police who didn't verify the translation before arresting someone (he got released of course). Image recognition is another issue AI etichs like to bring up. "A black man was falsy identified!!". But when Yann Lecun said it's a training data problem the AI etichs researchers exploded. "No! AI models are racist!!". Etc.

Now, if you have to work with a biased dataset, then ethics/fairness research might have some value in guiding you on how to build more fair models. But in industry and esp companies like Google, cannot take chances and almost always resort to data as the solution.

Re: Is Google’s AI research about to implode?

#78

Post by karmasimida »

Rochus wrote: post #53
sdevonoes wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright. 99.999% of us are replaceable.

Also this is a management illusion. There is no evidence for this assumption. You don't even know the probability distribution. There is no reason to assume that the percentage is equally distributed across all firms or countries. And anyway, the article is about something else.

Then what is your distribution then?

Those exceptional individuals are incredibly rare, like one or two in a generation. So you need to be Shannon-likes to be not replaced by some middle manager in a big corporate? Emm, if someone were this accomplished, why would they care about one employment? That is the wrong question to ask.

Truth is, if Google thought they were not replaceable, it would not fire them this easily.

Re: Is Google’s AI research about to implode?

#80

Post by jessriedel »

avereveard wrote: post #63
Rochus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of us are replaceable That's a management illusion. Try to replace e.g. someone like Fabrice Bellard, Mike Pall or Claude Shannon. Of course such things happen in big companies, but mostly because management is too limited to properly assess the true value of certain individuals. But the article is actually about a different topic.

Shannon built on Hartley, as much as Einstein built on Lorentz. That's not to say these weren't great minds, but the concepts where in the air and the race to formalize them was on; most of the "second places" are today forgotten or their contribution diminished from the modern "winner takes all" mentality, but none of them existed in a vacuum. The history of science is fraught with independent discoveries, from calc…

If A and B made the same discovery independently, that is evidence that A was replaceable, but that C built on D is not evidence that C was replaceable.
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