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Remembering Bell Labs as legendary idea factory prepares to leave N.J. home

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Re: Remembering Bell Labs as legendary idea factory prepares to leave N.J. home

#81

Post by pm90 »

coliveira wrote: post #78
tomcam wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that if you have a PhD in the right field and enough hip publications that many of the FAANG companies still have research teams like that operating in a diminished capacity. It appears to me that many of these positions have been replaced by administrators who are more interested in hiring to a specific set of demographics.

Have you ever seen something fundamental coming from FAANG? No, and you won't, because what they're doing (even when very technical) is purely for the improvement of their business. Things like AI are coming from smaller groups such as OpenAI, even when backed by big companies like Microsoft.

What are you talking about? All of the basic research around transformers originated at Google.

Re: Remembering Bell Labs as legendary idea factory prepares to leave N.J. home

#82

Post by MichaelZuo »

user_7832 wrote: post #35
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>though they sound more "math-ey" than engineering-ey Isn't math necessary for most real-world engineering, and even in CS research? And what were you expecting? You asked for a cutting edge Bell-Labs type of R&D place, and that's what research is all about, even in CS. You'll work with a lot of new yet-unproven theoretical concepts for which you need a lot of math to prove they have a high chance of working in pract…

It really depends on what you're looking at. Disclaimer, I'm a mechanical engineer and not a CS guy. A lot of the stuff if you're doing say quantum computing is understandably math heavy. But if you're say designing a flying kite-like generator, it's more "engineering math", if you know what I mean? (Which is what I'm comfortable with)

Any serious place will only be looking for folks that are bonafide math geniuses in addition to their actual specialty.

In the case of mechanical engineers, maybe 1 in 50 bonafide geniuses in mechanical engineering are also simultaneously math geniuses. Just my personal hunch.

There's really not that many positions, so it's unrealistic to expect recruiting standards to be much lower.

Re: Remembering Bell Labs as legendary idea factory prepares to leave N.J. home

#83

Post by foobarian »

lgkk wrote: post #37

I have walked those halls and let me tell you it feels spooky in a good way to know a lot of groundbreaking work was done there. During the time I was on campus it was mostly empty. There were old computers still inside some rooms. I felt like I had been transported to the 80s or 90s in one hall and some halls even more decades in the past. Really grand. I can’t imagine what it was like in its heyday.

I was there for a short time. A cool feature was they had a company hardware store on premises selling all sorts of weird stuff, that you could pay for with your badge and get it deducted from your pay if memory serves. I still have a screwdriver I got there.

Re: Remembering Bell Labs as legendary idea factory prepares to leave N.J. home

#85

Post by lotsofpulp »

esafak wrote: post #48
lotsofpulp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is pretty close to zero. Has anyone thought about how much a trade of a broadly traded security will cost them in recent times, or ever thought it would not happen near instantly?

How frequently do you think most people make such transactions?

I don’t know about individuals, but there are quite a few people exposed to transactions costs via 401k/IRA/taxpayer funded pensions/etc.

Re: Remembering Bell Labs as legendary idea factory prepares to leave N.J. home

#86

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

whimsicalism wrote: post #75
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how many, if any, are doing blue sky research (vs product-directed "research") any more the way that Bell Labs, IBM Watson and Xerox Parc used to do. Look at what's going on with ML/AI - DeepMind now merged with Google Brain seemingly with a product focus, FAIR now moved into a product group alongside Meta's GenAI group, Microsoft essentially outsourcing AI to OpenAI, OpenAI may as well call itself GPTCo…

> DeepMind now merged with Google Brain seemingly with a product focus, FAI I don’t really agree that training massive causal LMs is a “product focus”. I agree that there is an increasing product focus in orgs like OAI, but a lot of that is coming from new growth rather than trading off with base research.

> I don’t really agree that training massive causal LMs is a “product focus”.

I'd hope that Google DeepMind's mission statement is a bit broader than that, but certainly Gemini seems to be the focus. It seems to me there's a world of difference between DeepMind's original goal of developing AGI (via whatever means - as a research objective), and now being told they have to build LLMs.

If we compare Google to Meta, it seems it used to be that DeepMind was equivalent to FAIR as a pure research organization, and Brain equivalent to Meta's product focused ML group(s), but now the joint Google DeepMind is more akin to Meta's GenAI group, and there is no unfettered research group at Google left free to pursue AGI in any way other than hoping it can be developed out of LLMs. However, FAIR also seems constrained now that they have been moved into a product-focused part of the organization (under CPO Chris Cox).

Re: Remembering Bell Labs as legendary idea factory prepares to leave N.J. home

#87

Post by [deleted] »

coliveira wrote: post #78
tomcam wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that if you have a PhD in the right field and enough hip publications that many of the FAANG companies still have research teams like that operating in a diminished capacity. It appears to me that many of these positions have been replaced by administrators who are more interested in hiring to a specific set of demographics.

Have you ever seen something fundamental coming from FAANG? No, and you won't, because what they're doing (even when very technical) is purely for the improvement of their business. Things like AI are coming from smaller groups such as OpenAI, even when backed by big companies like Microsoft.

[deleted]

Re: Remembering Bell Labs as legendary idea factory prepares to leave N.J. home

#88

Post by BaculumMeumEst »

ioblomov wrote: post #68
tomcam wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not a nostalgic person, but for some reason I wish irrationally that that Murray Hill building could be preserved as is. I read so much about of it in the history of computing, and just like (from the pictures) the building interior itself so much I just feel like I missed out on some thing not to have been there myself. I was lucky enough to work at Microsoft in building 2, one of 8 matching buildings from the m…

The whole complex (immortalized as Lumon HQ in Severance ) is landmarked so presumably it can’t be messed with too much. Even apart from the historical significance, it’s a masterpiece of mid-century design. Its architect, Eero Saarinen, also did the St. Louis Arch and, my personal favorite, the TWA terminal at JFK, which reopened as a hotel in 2019. If you’re ever stuck on a layover there, do check it out! https://e…

Man, I forgot about that show. I hope season 2 is good and doesn’t get too silly.

Re: Remembering Bell Labs as legendary idea factory prepares to leave N.J. home

#90

Post by jakderrida »

ioblomov wrote: post #64
stn8188 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that investment in the city of New Brunswick seems like a great idea for the reasons you stated. At the same time, it just feels so grand and historic to walk the same halls as the likes of Shannon, and it's a bit sad that I may not be able to see it again. (I've only visited a handful of times to work on some joint projects though). Hopefully the new lab space/equipment will be very modern and efficient thou…

While I’m not saying Shannon never walked the halls of Murray Hill, his publishing A Mathematical Theory of Communication in 1948 meant that he was working at the lab’s previous location in the West Village… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Laboratories_Building

1966?? So, like, pretty much all the world-changing, paradigm-shifting revelations were in West Village?

So, while working with Verizon, they falsely claimed it to be Basking Ridge, NJ (which they bought and boasted as the Brains of Bell to invoke a symbolic victory of sorts) until I found out they were either lying or swindled and it was another place in Jersey. Yet again, I find out from you that it was just another fake "Brains of Bell".

Even though I feel used once again, I do appreciate your post.

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