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

Sebastian Thrun Has Left His Role as Google VP and Fellow

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 62 posts

Re: Sebastian Thrun Has Left His Role as Google VP and Fellow

#51

Post by adamconroy »

strongai wrote: post #16

Ironically, if he has left to concentrate on Udacity, my own belief is that he is a poor teacher. Of course it depends on which pedagogical teat you are sucking from, but my experience of Thrun's delivered Udacity courses is poor. Many of his video segments seem to involve him slavishly following his 'script', occasionally hissing out encouraging phrases such as 'Isn't this great!'. He hasn't sequenced a series of lo…

Weird. My opinion is that he is a fantastic teacher. I did his Stanford AI course online and it was by far the best learning experience I have had.

Re: Sebastian Thrun Has Left His Role as Google VP and Fellow

#52

Post by ericd »

kenferry wrote: post #43
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is how to effectively teach an online course the problem to focus on? It's interesting to note that if MOOCs turn out to be a dud, yet people are learning effectively from MOOCs, then it's proof that people pay for a college degree, not for education. In other words, prestige seems to be the issue, not education.

> yet people are learning effectively from MOOCs Statistically speaking, they aren't, that's the problem. Completion rates with Coursera are ~5%. Some argue that many people don't _want_ to finish the courses, but this views the product as something fixed. For any other kind of business, is "people sign up but then don't value it enough to continue" an excuse for lack of retention?

They're at 5% because people like me sign up for every course that sounds vaguely interesting, well before they start, and then when it comes time to actually do the work, I almost always drop it because I'm preoccupied. I treat it like signing up for an alert to let me know when it's going to start, at which point I make the actual decision.

There's also a more structural problem with synchronous learning, in that if a real world problem like my job conflicts with a self-imposed homework deadline, the deadline isn't going to win. But that seems solveable by offering async options for those it fits better.

Re: Sebastian Thrun Has Left His Role as Google VP and Fellow

#53

Post by ericd »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #40
ericd wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people I've seen calling MOOCs a dud seem to have had the expectation that they'd see completion rates somewhere near traditional courses, which is laughable when you consider the differences in structure, demographics, and buy in. Even despite the high dropout rates, I think they end up teaching more students than the comparable class session at a university. I took a grad class to completion on Coursera, and I…

Is how to effectively teach an online course the problem to focus on? It's interesting to note that if MOOCs turn out to be a dud, yet people are learning effectively from MOOCs, then it's proof that people pay for a college degree, not for education. In other words, prestige seems to be the issue, not education.

Well, I'd say that if lots of people end up getting good educations from MOOCs, then that's a success, commercial results be damned (as long as it's at least sustainable).

If peoe could get a provably good education from a MOOC (to the same extent that a traditional degree+GPA proves that), then it might say something about the prestige question. Needs to become a better signal than it is, though.

Re: Sebastian Thrun Has Left His Role as Google VP and Fellow

#54

Post by Istof »

julianpye wrote: post #26
shas3 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google X is amazing in that it is about the only one left doing true bluesky R&D. Everyone else is just doing product development. That is quite wrong, really. There are many industrial research labs that are pursuing 'bluesky' research, in pretty much all sectors, including computer science, EE, chemistry, pharmacology, etc. Just to name a few, Mitisubishi Electric Research Labs (MERL), IBM Almaden/New York/Zurich…

Just because there are research labs, it doesn't mean that they are doing truly free blue-sky research. Lots of the labs you mention have very antiquated IPR focus, especially Mitsubishi and IBM. And as an example, Almaden still feels closer to the lair of a a James Bond enemy in the 60s than a free spirited R&D lab.

Also, just because there is no research labs doesn't mean employees aren't allowed to do some blue-sky research.

Re: Sebastian Thrun Has Left His Role as Google VP and Fellow

#55

Post by cscurmudgeon »

sqrt17 wrote: post #50
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If IBM's Watson does not count as "free blue-sky" AI research, I don't know what else counts. http://youtu.be/P18EdAKuC1U?t=2m20s https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=an+acco... Funnily, Google completes my phrase "an account of the principalities of wallachia and moldavia inspired this author's famous novel" but is completely clueless. As the other poster said, Google seems to be winning the advertis…

IBM's Watson is about the level of research that Google or Microsoft do in their regular research labs - i.e., it definitely has a longer-term scope, and it's reasonable to expect that investments in this area will pay off in the next 10-15 years rather than 2-3 years as with normal product development. It is not blue-sky research, though: it's pretty clear what the value proposition is, who the (potential) customers…

"It is not blue-sky research,"

As someone who dwells in AI/Machine Learning for a living, let me tell you: Watson is the most extreme blue sky research out there. It happens to have a customer base that intersects with IBM's current base. Why should this be a diminishing factor?

Google's blue sky research is also ultimately for customers. IBM is good at actually selling its research as products. No company does anything for truly altruistic reasons. If so, Google would be spending billions of particle accelerators.

http://www.research.ibm.com/haifa/info/news_ibm_help_cern.ht...

Re: Sebastian Thrun Has Left His Role as Google VP and Fellow

#56

Post by esrauch »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #55
sqrt17 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IBM's Watson is about the level of research that Google or Microsoft do in their regular research labs - i.e., it definitely has a longer-term scope, and it's reasonable to expect that investments in this area will pay off in the next 10-15 years rather than 2-3 years as with normal product development. It is not blue-sky research, though: it's pretty clear what the value proposition is, who the (potential) customers…

"It is not blue-sky research," As someone who dwells in AI/Machine Learning for a living, let me tell you: Watson is the most extreme blue sky research out there. It happens to have a customer base that intersects with IBM's current base. Why should this be a diminishing factor? Google's blue sky research is also ultimately for customers. IBM is good at actually selling its research as products. No company does anyth…

> Watson is the most extreme blue sky research out there

Do you mean it is the most blue sky research being done in the field of AI by large companies? Even if it was closest to blue sky research being done in machine learning by large tech companies, that really doesn't automatically mean that it is blue sky research.

> It happens to have a customer base that intersects with IBM's current base

The definition of blue sky research is "research without any clear path to a product". It isn't diminishing the importance of research to say that it is blue sky (in fact many people would argue the opposite). Watson was already being touted for an actual product launch by the time that it was on Jeopardy.

Re: Sebastian Thrun Has Left His Role as Google VP and Fellow

#57

Post by kenferry »

pekk wrote: post #48
kenferry wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yet people are learning effectively from MOOCs Statistically speaking, they aren't, that's the problem. Completion rates with Coursera are ~5%. Some argue that many people don't _want_ to finish the courses, but this views the product as something fixed. For any other kind of business, is "people sign up but then don't value it enough to continue" an excuse for lack of retention?

Retention is not a goal. For example, if you are just trying to make money, then you don't really care if all your content is consumed as long as people still pay their subscriptions or whatever. Of course, the reason completion rates are so bad with MOOCs is free access. If you force people to filter themselves out unless they are willing to pay a lot, you will see more normal "completion rates" expressed as a perce…

There are plenty of free in-person classes in the world (I'm sure you can sign up for a dance class, for example), and an in-person class that had a 5% completion rate would be a disaster.

I'm not sure what you're arguing. You think people are learning well from MOOCs in their current form? You might note Thrun's own thoughts on the subject: http://www.fastcompany.com/3021473/udacity-sebastian-thrun-u...

"We were on the front pages of newspapers and magazines, and at the same time, I was realizing, we don't educate people as others wished, or as I wished. We have a lousy product,"

Re: Sebastian Thrun Has Left His Role as Google VP and Fellow

#58

Post by sillysaurus3 »

kenferry wrote: post #57
pekk wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retention is not a goal. For example, if you are just trying to make money, then you don't really care if all your content is consumed as long as people still pay their subscriptions or whatever. Of course, the reason completion rates are so bad with MOOCs is free access. If you force people to filter themselves out unless they are willing to pay a lot, you will see more normal "completion rates" expressed as a perce…

There are plenty of free in-person classes in the world (I'm sure you can sign up for a dance class, for example), and an in-person class that had a 5% completion rate would be a disaster. I'm not sure what you're arguing. You think people are learning well from MOOCs in their current form? You might note Thrun's own thoughts on the subject: http://www.fastcompany.com/3021473/udacity-sebastian-thrun-u... "We were on…

You think people are learning well from MOOCs in their current form?

Yes. I am, for example.

Online classes aren't physical classes. Physical classes don't have 5% retention rates because people have to show up for them, so they're more likely to go next time. Being in a group makes people want to continue being in it. But with online classes, there's no such hook, and so people skip out.

Also, it seems mistaken for stats on retention rates to include everyone who originally signed up. They should measure the retention rate for people who made it halfway through the course. I'd bet that they'll see a much higher rate, because if someone hasn't left halfway through the course, they're unlikely to leave just because they suddenly feel like it. And if that's true, then it's evidence that people in that situation take MOOCs as seriously as their normal classes.

Re: Sebastian Thrun Has Left His Role as Google VP and Fellow

#59

Post by cscurmudgeon »

esrauch wrote: post #56
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It is not blue-sky research," As someone who dwells in AI/Machine Learning for a living, let me tell you: Watson is the most extreme blue sky research out there. It happens to have a customer base that intersects with IBM's current base. Why should this be a diminishing factor? Google's blue sky research is also ultimately for customers. IBM is good at actually selling its research as products. No company does anyth…

> Watson is the most extreme blue sky research out there Do you mean it is the most blue sky research being done in the field of AI by large companies? Even if it was closest to blue sky research being done in machine learning by large tech companies, that really doesn't automatically mean that it is blue sky research. > It happens to have a customer base that intersects with IBM's current base The definition of blue…

What would an example be from, say, Google?

Re: Sebastian Thrun Has Left His Role as Google VP and Fellow

#60

Post by ericd »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #58
kenferry wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of free in-person classes in the world (I'm sure you can sign up for a dance class, for example), and an in-person class that had a 5% completion rate would be a disaster. I'm not sure what you're arguing. You think people are learning well from MOOCs in their current form? You might note Thrun's own thoughts on the subject: http://www.fastcompany.com/3021473/udacity-sebastian-thrun-u... "We were on…

You think people are learning well from MOOCs in their current form? Yes. I am, for example. Online classes aren't physical classes. Physical classes don't have 5% retention rates because people have to show up for them, so they're more likely to go next time. Being in a group makes people want to continue being in it. But with online classes, there's no such hook, and so people skip out. Also, it seems mistaken for…

Yeah, the one I completed, I was completely locked in by ~halfway through, due to the already-invested time.
Post reply on HN