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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?

#151

Post by espadrine »

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.

Replaceability is a vain concept.

Simile: saying “your brain is replaceable”. Beyond the fact that the most likely context is a threat, it is a poor argument: while technically true, what would remain of me would not be meaningfully me. And the surgery is work that would be hard-pressed to generate the expected value, such that the only reason to do it, is either out of anger or as a consequence of irremediable damage.

Companies are stories. The decisions are made internally, but their meaning is narrated externally. If you change the protagonists, the story changes. The case of Uber’s self-driving car division is quite an example of that.

Does the change in Google’s story converge to a positive or a negative light?

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

#152

Post by fock »

Manifretto wrote: post #34
DavidSumpter wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please read the article. I address some of the issues raised. My point is that Gebru's firing is symptomatic of some deep problems Google are experiencing. Thank you.

I read the article and i'm not following the argument delivered at all. There is no real proof to this. I'm following and reading research @ google (stuff like this https://ai.googleblog.com/ and other sources) for ages now and NOTHING indicates an 'implosion'. It is strong research with real and constant results. I have no idea why the autor would even consider using the word 'implode'. Its not rocket science that d…

> For the single reason that biased systems in certain areas will not deliver the results you need to use it properly.

well, they produce happy numbers for papers and depending on the brainwash-level of a population, they might also sufficiently often do the "right thing" towards minorities that noone cares too much about, independent of whether it would stand a chance against objective evaluation.

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

#153

Post by manux »

tinyhouse wrote: post #147
manux wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you see any VC investing in etichs in ML startups? Perhaps you should pay less attention to VCs and more attention to governments and academic institutions, who for example in Canada are investing 10s of millions of dollars into AI ethics/FATE/AI for good research. Sometimes, the point isn't just to make money, it's to actually improve humanity.

The point is not just making money. The point is solving real world problems. AI ethics focus on esoteric problems that don't solve any real world problems. AI ethics research has very little impact if at all on real issues.

> AI ethics focus on esoteric problems that don't solve any real world problems

I'm not sure now what you think AI ethics research is. Do you think systemic discrimination is not a real world problem?

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

#154

Post by geodel »

May be "AI Ethics" research will be affected and I believe this is good thing. After reading David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs, He claims that administrative jobs in universities and managerial, duct tape IT jobs in industry as examples of it. Now it occurred to me that this AI ethics research is just one more example of proliferating bullshit job. Just recycle same idea and conclusions thousand times and you have years of research and hundreds of papers generated out of it.

And a mutual admiration society of university departments, twitter fans and these type of researchers in tech companies keep everyone in high esteem as world leading authorities.

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

#155

Post by tantalor »

cowpig wrote: post #142
tantalor wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's tough to draw a straight line from "deep institution" (redundant?) to specific examples. It shows up more in background statistic than anecdotes. When we're focusing on N=1, I'd rather see concrete complaints (and no, internal forum posts do not count).

> and no, internal forum posts do not count I don't understand this statement. In my mind, internal forum posts as among the most revealing forms of evidence about the culture of an organization.

Too subjective; what looks like malice could just be basic misunderstanding.

Simple example: if I reply only the original forum post, but my message is posted after yours, then you might assume like I'm excluding you intentionally, probably because I don't like you personally; you get mad. This assumption is wrong and harmful to productive conversations. The simplest explanation is I began writing my reply before you posted; no apology is warranted. Another possibility is I'm simply a careless or excitable type of person who usually replies quickly before reading other replies; an apology is warranted, but it wasn't a personal attack!

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

#156

Post by marcus_holmes »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #115
marcus_holmes wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a whole set of problems that people can work on. There's solutions for most of them. Some of those solutions aren't very good, but they're the best we have. Fabrice Bellard has worked on a subset of the problems we have. He's created good solutions for them. But if he hadn't, we would have some other, lesser, solution for those problems. Like we do for the problems he hasn't worked on. No, you can't expect co…

> We would have some other, lesser, solution for those problems. [...] No, you can't expect comparable results. But you can expect some results Which is exactly my point: if you can’t expect comparable results, the person is not replaceable.

I think we're violently agreeing then, as I said "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"

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

#157

Post by marcus_holmes »

espadrine wrote: post #151
marcus_holmes wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Replaceability is a vain concept. Simile: saying “your brain is replaceable”. Beyond the fact that the most likely context is a threat, it is a poor argument: while technically true, what would remain of me would not be meaningfully me. And the surgery is work that would be hard-pressed to generate the expected value, such that the only reason to do it, is either out of anger or as a consequence of irremediable damag…

> Does the change in Google’s story converge to a positive or a negative light?

Like all stories, the meaning and message of the story is formed in the mind of the reader, not the mind of the writer.

Every reader will make their own meaning, and fit that into their own story.

It's impossible to say whether this change results in a positive or negative effect: it will be positive for some, negative for some.

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

#158

Post by throwaway316943 »

c-cube wrote: post #108
throwaway316943 wrote: post #87

Nice try, but still a miss. Building assumptions into NN won’t work for anything complex like ladders and keys which according to this author are built in to human brains? Please. Yes, NN are still in their infancy but they are clearly foundational to general intelligence. They will probably require many additional discoveries about how they need to be connected and maybe even a few updates to the model of the neuron…

> Please. Yes, NN are still in their infancy but they are clearly foundational to general intelligence. This calls for a big fat "citation needed". What we call neural networks have very little to do with actual neurons, so I fail to see how this is supposed to be "clear". And it's in its infancy since the sixties, really?

I’d say it’s clear since we continue to make significant progress in replicating the behaviour of biological NNs with the main limitation being the amount of parallelism we can throw at it. If you read closely I stated that our model of the neuron may require modification but the basic idea is correct. Our implementation of artificial NN is in its infancy, we still don’t fully understand how to structure these networks and the way we feed them data is nowhere close to how biological NNs get theirs from the environment but the current SOTA is necessary because we don’t know how to build something capable of operating in the same way. We still have a lot to learn. We’re competing with hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary exploration using our fairly rudimentary understanding of biology. 60 years is nothing especially considering progress is not inevitable and this area of science has major boom and bust cycles where not a lot gets done.

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

#159

Post by tinyhouse »

manux wrote: post #153
tinyhouse wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is not just making money. The point is solving real world problems. AI ethics focus on esoteric problems that don't solve any real world problems. AI ethics research has very little impact if at all on real issues.

> AI ethics focus on esoteric problems that don't solve any real world problems I'm not sure now what you think AI ethics research is. Do you think systemic discrimination is not a real world problem?

Systemic discrimination is indeed a real world problem. That's exactly the problem. AI ethics doesn't help solving systemic discrimination for the simple reason that AI is not causing systemic discrimination.

AI systems are trained on data. There's an abundance of English data which is why systems are often biased to work better on English. Similarly, an image recognition system might be biased if you don't provide it with data representing all demographics. There's nothing new about this and you don't need AI ethics research to solve these issue.

Focusing on AI ethics thinking it has impact on systemic discrimination, instead of focusing on real issues that cause systemic discrimination, is my main issue with all of this.

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

#160

Post by fock »

tinyhouse wrote: post #147
manux wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you see any VC investing in etichs in ML startups? Perhaps you should pay less attention to VCs and more attention to governments and academic institutions, who for example in Canada are investing 10s of millions of dollars into AI ethics/FATE/AI for good research. Sometimes, the point isn't just to make money, it's to actually improve humanity.

The point is not just making money. The point is solving real world problems. AI ethics focus on esoteric problems that don't solve any real world problems. AI ethics research has very little impact if at all on real issues.

So, could you tell me for example, what this relatively often cited paper solves or where it's actually applied to solve a real world problem? https://openreview.net/forum?id=Sy2fzU9gl
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