TikTok has an open computational chemistry position

Post by bee_rider » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 6:58 PM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #64

cavanasm wrote: post #19

The title of the job opening says computational chemistry, but the details indicate they're looking for someone with credentials in one of a few different computation / simulation specialized fields. If I had to guess, it seems possible they think those types of simulation design skills may be useful for simulating user social behavior somehow?

Yeah, this isn't really that different than quant hedge funds hiring theoretical physics PhDs. It's not like you're actually going to be doing Yang Mills field equations to trade some stocks. They just need a guy to run some linear regressions, and can afford to find someone really really overqualified so they don't screw up.

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 7:05 PM UTC

c7b wrote: post #55

cavanasm wrote: post #19

The title of the job opening says computational chemistry, but the details indicate they're looking for someone with credentials in one of a few different computation / simulation specialized fields. If I had to guess, it seems possible they think those types of simulation design skills may be useful for simulating user social behavior somehow?

No, it's really about material science and biology, just read further in the ad: Responsibilities • Follow the latest progress in computational science such as material and biology. • Solve real-world problems in material and biology, with computational approaches such as molecular dynamics, quantum chemistry, and machine learning. • Optimize and speed up classical molecular dynamics and quantum chemistry algorithms…

Post by 11101010001100 » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 7:20 PM UTC

chazeon wrote: post #101

11101010001100 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the dynamics are still classical right? You are just using a highly accurate interatomic potential.

There is path-integral MD with imaginary time you can use to address quantum effects such as tunneling when you have protons in the system. But yeah, basically are still doing ionic dynamics and ignoring the electrons. The electronic effect needs to be "baked" into the ML potential when you are training the potential with DFT data.

Post by Melatonic » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 7:31 PM UTC

chazeon wrote: post #54

Tiktok/bytedance already have large ML infrastructure in place (GPU clusters), and since quantum chemistry simulation is moving towards ML based simulation, they have an edge there. Open source ML simulation software such as DeePMD-kit is already seeing contributions from Tiktok employees.

Post by dryd » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 7:44 PM UTC

SQueeeeeL wrote: post #50

api wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few generations ago many of our brightest minds were building doomsday weapons to incinerate all life on Earth, so maybe this is progress.

Probably not, if you shoot a man, there's a perpetrator and an end. If you brainwash a man, forever his actions will no longer be fully his own. Plus most people view violence as something undesirable (see Vietnam war protests), but advertising still has many hawks who will never stop singing it's praises while all public spaces are consumed by corporate branding until we have no where uninfected