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Microsoft forms new 5,000-person AI division

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Re: Microsoft forms new 5,000-person AI division

#101

Post by draker »

brianobush wrote: post #96
delegate wrote: post #40

I feel like, as a solo app developer, I'm being left out of this 'revolution'. It seems like deep learning only makes sense if you have enough data to feed the algorithm with. The kind of data that only big companies can produce or harvest. Sure you can produce some video and audio data and you can spider the web a little bit, but that doesn't even come close to the resources that these big corporations have and the…

The obvious focus is deep learning, but those models need data, trained and deployed. There is a lot of work on those edges that require some AI knowledge. Also don't forget there are lots of AI techniques that are just as important now. So focus on an area that interests you, learn some of those AI methods and go! Every developer in the future will have to understand some of these methods at a basic level.

What would be considered "basic" AI techniques?

Any resources you would recommend for a good introduction to AI/deep learning?

Re: Microsoft forms new 5,000-person AI division

#102

Post by SwellJoe »

delegate wrote: post #40

I feel like, as a solo app developer, I'm being left out of this 'revolution'. It seems like deep learning only makes sense if you have enough data to feed the algorithm with. The kind of data that only big companies can produce or harvest. Sure you can produce some video and audio data and you can spider the web a little bit, but that doesn't even come close to the resources that these big corporations have and the…

I've just started tinkering with deep learning for a solo project; I recognized pretty quickly that there are many areas where I can't "play with the big boys", but I also realized there's a lot of low-hanging fruit that is accessible to me exactly because the big guys are open sourcing so much.

So, I can build products that aren't big enough to interest Google, but include a bunch of tech developed by Google (and others) and leverages their APIs to provide a unique service that is feasible for me to build, and will be useful to a wide variety of people. I can offer it for very little money (one person's side project), and hopefully have some fun learning about deep learning.

I'm so new to it that I'm not even thinking about advancing the state of the art or doing novel work. But, in a couple of years, who knows. Just tinkering with things in a new industry often provides pathways to cool stuff because so many doors are opening all the time. This is like being involved in the Internet in the early-to-mid 90s. You probably won't become the next Google, but the odds of finding a highly profitable smaller niche seems pretty high.

Also, there's going to be a ton of acquisitions in the AI/deep learning space over the next decade. Every company that even does a little tech will "need" an AI story to keep their investors happy. Your tiny thing could be one of those acqui-hires, or maybe not.

Then again, if you have an interest in other stuff, and really don't feel excited about it...probably not worth forcing yourself to get into it. Life is short, you should do stuff that's fun, even if you have to ring the cash register now and then.

Re: Microsoft forms new 5,000-person AI division

#103

Post by nostrademons »

safdeep wrote: post #27

I love the fact that it took Ballmer to leave for them to really get serious about cutting-edge tech again. Bill Gates are probably wishing he never met Ballmer at Harvard.

Two sides to this comment:

1) It took Ballmer to leave for them to really get serious about innovating again.

2) ...because under Ballmer, they were able to make billions of dollars without innovating.

Bill Gates is probably pretty happy about #2 even if he's not thrilled about #1.

Re: Microsoft forms new 5,000-person AI division

#105

Post by hinkley »

johnward wrote: post #42
dave_sullivan wrote: post #8

To put this in perspective, 5000 people at $200k per year (which is conservative if you include benefits, etc.) is 1 billion dollars in comp per year. So OpenAI is spending a billion dollars over the next several years. Microsoft is spending a billion dollars per year. Google, etc. do the math. There's literally billions of dollars now being spent on moving deep learning forward. Pretty amazing when I think back to 2…

>(which is conservative if you include benefits, etc.) I've never been able to figure out how my employer says I cost them $280 per hour.

Because your boss has no billable hours. Nor his boss, nor the boss above him. The front desk guy, the lady in accounting, the payroll people, facilities, most of the IT folk.

You need one of each these people for every N developers (different value of N for different classes of service). Therefore the cost of having you includes the 1/N cost of each of these people.

Re: Microsoft forms new 5,000-person AI division

#106

Post by SwellJoe »

rifung wrote: post #99
SwellJoe wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft historically pays slightly better than Google and other valley companies. And, the cost of an employee is usually significantly higher than the salary alone. Something like 30%-60% higher, when factoring in benefits, cost of providing offices, stock options, etc. So, $200k is pretty conservative in many tech hubs, not just the valley, particularly when you're talking about people involved in research (who a…

Where are you getting this information from? I got an offer from Microsoft and it definitely wasn't even close to what people who get offers from FB or Google get. Anecdotally, pay I've seen from Google and FB are higher than Microsoft/Amazon, but of course that's not saying much. Still, the first source I can find matches what I've seen: https://blog.step.com/2016/04/08/an-open-source-project-for-...

My information may be out of date. My friends who've chosen between Google and Microsoft got better offers from MS; though often ended up going to Google anyway, because they just liked it better. But, it was all several years ago.

Re: Microsoft forms new 5,000-person AI division

#107

Post by hinkley »

rifung wrote: post #99
SwellJoe wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft historically pays slightly better than Google and other valley companies. And, the cost of an employee is usually significantly higher than the salary alone. Something like 30%-60% higher, when factoring in benefits, cost of providing offices, stock options, etc. So, $200k is pretty conservative in many tech hubs, not just the valley, particularly when you're talking about people involved in research (who a…

Where are you getting this information from? I got an offer from Microsoft and it definitely wasn't even close to what people who get offers from FB or Google get. Anecdotally, pay I've seen from Google and FB are higher than Microsoft/Amazon, but of course that's not saying much. Still, the first source I can find matches what I've seen: https://blog.step.com/2016/04/08/an-open-source-project-for-...

You realize you're comparing job offers in the most expensive city in the western hemisphere to offers in Seattle, right?

Re: Microsoft forms new 5,000-person AI division

#108

Post by ww520 »

delegate wrote: post #40

I feel like, as a solo app developer, I'm being left out of this 'revolution'. It seems like deep learning only makes sense if you have enough data to feed the algorithm with. The kind of data that only big companies can produce or harvest. Sure you can produce some video and audio data and you can spider the web a little bit, but that doesn't even come close to the resources that these big corporations have and the…

It's hard to just have a product centered around AI, but you can add AI to one of the components in your product. E.g. drawing a box around the face in a photo using face recognition technique is fairly approachable. It just means you need to call a library. A lots of the AI are well understood and encapsulated.

Re: Microsoft forms new 5,000-person AI division

#109

Post by hinkley »

delegate wrote: post #40

I feel like, as a solo app developer, I'm being left out of this 'revolution'. It seems like deep learning only makes sense if you have enough data to feed the algorithm with. The kind of data that only big companies can produce or harvest. Sure you can produce some video and audio data and you can spider the web a little bit, but that doesn't even come close to the resources that these big corporations have and the…

If someone proves that deep learning is applicable to most software categories (and I honestly don't think it is, at least not for a very long time), then someone will sell a solution you can plug into your app.

We already have a disturbing quantity and variety of user metric apps for the web. Realtime feedback just requires someone to bring engineering discipline to bear on the space and produce a functional and efficient version. Instead of a bunch of code monkey asshats making my beautiful, fast web app soul crushingly slow because my bosses said yes to one more tracking addon.

Re: Microsoft forms new 5,000-person AI division

#110

Post by ww520 »

shostack wrote: post #70
abz10 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was Satya sending the strong message that no-one is untouchable and everyone must get inline or they will be next. It's actually a common strategy that requires the victims to be their best people. Obviously you can't to this too many times. Politics as usual.

Can you elaborate on how that works? If the victims are their best people who are doing solid, profitable work, laying them off seems like it would create a state of uncertainty which, in this climate, might just cause people to jump ship because competitive jobs are just around the corner. Or was there some issue with the group where they had to sacrifice the good with the bad due to lack of overall profitability?

You think you are better than the ML group? No? See I've just fired all of them. Don't think for a second I won't fire your ass on a whim. Now get to work.

Something like that.

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