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Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign

wsj.com

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Re: Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign

#81

Post by pas »

blub wrote: post #74
sapote wrote: post #68

I know that the story is nonsense -- I am part of a research group that's gotten such grants before. This is basically a story aiming to confuse those who don't understand how research works. Google is funding work that aligns with what they do, but the grants they give are no-strings-attached and are tiny. (Government grants are much bigger.) Sure, Google only funds things that are related to what they care about, b…

Who funds a research should be written in bold on the first page together with their interest in the topic and any potential conflicts of interest. The fact that the contributions were not disclosed is highly suspicious. Google is also not merely funding works that aligns with what they do, it's apparently "helped finance hundreds of research papers to DEFEND against regulatory challenges of its market dominance ", w…

Google allegedly requires disclosing its support, and it does transparency reports about who they fund/funded.

So, are they doing this or not?

If yes, good. Then this is just a NewsCorp hit piece. Again.

If not. Google is being shitty. Again.

Those travelling salesmans/professors should have to register as lobbyists.

Re: Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign

#82

Post by jonathanyc »

sapote wrote: post #68

I know that the story is nonsense -- I am part of a research group that's gotten such grants before. This is basically a story aiming to confuse those who don't understand how research works. Google is funding work that aligns with what they do, but the grants they give are no-strings-attached and are tiny. (Government grants are much bigger.) Sure, Google only funds things that are related to what they care about, b…

Your comment has essentially zero content. If you have a genuine interest in making an argument rather than just an interest in making a post for people who agree with you before reading the article to upvote you, you should provide some actual points.

Google has an immense lobbying arm; the linked article discloses how Google funds a lot of public policy research that happens to agree with its positions. It's either disingenuous or naive to argue that professors won't be influenced to support Google's positions when it's unlikely Google will continue to fund researchers who start to disagree with them.

It would be rather frightening if we found out that tobacco companies had funded hundreds of studies into whether tobacco is healthy (oh, wait), regardless of whether or not the outcome were predetermined, just because any reasonable person can see that there will be a conflict of interest.

Why are we so willing to assume that one corporation whose only interest is profit is so different from another?

Re: Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign

#83

Post by lovemenot »

bykovich2 wrote: post #15
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Nobody's saying that Google's invented a new strategy here. We've all known Phillip Morris, Monsanto, and the like to do this, but generally such companies have been derided for the behavior. People are generally hesitant to group Google in the same class of corporate actor.

The notion that a given multinational billion-dollar syndicate is not going to engage in the behavior characteristic of multinational billion-dollar syndicates because it's run by nerds instead of suits seems, at the very least, suspect.

So let's go ahead and proselytise this cynicism until the general population is as distrustful of their new corporate champions as they are of their now-reviled older champions.

Re: Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign

#84

Post by jondubois »

sapote wrote: post #68

I know that the story is nonsense -- I am part of a research group that's gotten such grants before. This is basically a story aiming to confuse those who don't understand how research works. Google is funding work that aligns with what they do, but the grants they give are no-strings-attached and are tiny. (Government grants are much bigger.) Sure, Google only funds things that are related to what they care about, b…

It doesn't matter if there are no strings attached. As a scientist (and particularly, as a human being), you would feel some degree of gratefulness for the grant that Google gave you - This is enough to bias the research at least a tiny little bit... If only a couple of extra friendly words in the conclusion or executive summary.

After many years of stacking up those "almost perfect" bricks, the tower starts to lean to one side just a little.

Re: Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign

#86

Post by gcb0 »

sapote wrote: post #68

I know that the story is nonsense -- I am part of a research group that's gotten such grants before. This is basically a story aiming to confuse those who don't understand how research works. Google is funding work that aligns with what they do, but the grants they give are no-strings-attached and are tiny. (Government grants are much bigger.) Sure, Google only funds things that are related to what they care about, b…

the point of view of a single person, even if insider, is not the same as a well researched work.

I could counter your anecdotal point of view with mine. around here, google hire professors without any ongoing research just to access potential future research from their students and have early access to grad students entering the market. the professors in question are full time employees that have their own office in the university campus.

Re: Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign

#87

Post by zmb_ »

blub wrote: post #74
sapote wrote: post #68

I know that the story is nonsense -- I am part of a research group that's gotten such grants before. This is basically a story aiming to confuse those who don't understand how research works. Google is funding work that aligns with what they do, but the grants they give are no-strings-attached and are tiny. (Government grants are much bigger.) Sure, Google only funds things that are related to what they care about, b…

Who funds a research should be written in bold on the first page together with their interest in the topic and any potential conflicts of interest. The fact that the contributions were not disclosed is highly suspicious. Google is also not merely funding works that aligns with what they do, it's apparently "helped finance hundreds of research papers to DEFEND against regulatory challenges of its market dominance ", w…

I am not sure I understand the outrage. We are, I assume, talking about peer reviewed research papers here? Regardless of who has funded the research and for what motives, the work has passed the community's filter for quality, significance and correctness. You might raise questions about the effectiveness of that filter, but that is a separate issue.

In fact, it much worse to dismiss research just because of who funded it or what their assumed motives were -- which is a strong human instinct, and which seems to be implicitly behind this outrage.

Re: Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign

#88

Post by lallysingh »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #66
caseysoftware wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because some groups have a vested interest (no pun intended) in building and protecting the notion that professors, scientists, and researchers* are angels without financial conflicts, personal biases, or even emotions. If people realize that they're all humans with flaws just like the rest of us, people might stop and think instead of blindly accepting their conclusions as Truth. * Except for the professors, scienti…

It is definitely hard to reconcile the "science is science" notion I hear on a lot of political topics here on HN (particularly on the left) with the general acceptance in this thread that it's okay that much of that much of academia is funded by biased sources.

Science is still the genuine best effort approach to finding out the truth. It's still done by humans, with all their failings, but it's the best we have. And it should be treated as the best we have, especially when compared to other sources.

Re: Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign

#89

Post by jgalt212 »

sapote wrote: post #77
blub wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who funds a research should be written in bold on the first page together with their interest in the topic and any potential conflicts of interest. The fact that the contributions were not disclosed is highly suspicious. Google is also not merely funding works that aligns with what they do, it's apparently "helped finance hundreds of research papers to DEFEND against regulatory challenges of its market dominance ", w…

I'm talking about CS research. I don't really consider law research and public policy research as real research -- that's lobbying and conflating the two is just for a headline. Edited to add: the WSJ went on a fishing expedition -- while the story is on a few law grant tidbits that they could make into a headline, they actually were trying to get access to the private email of many CS professors. What probably happe…

> law research and public policy research as real research

some would argue that this is the most important research Google sponsors these days as protecting their monopoly will preserve/create more value than most any new fangled CS thing they can come up with.

Re: Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign

#90

Post by mhermher »

zmb_ wrote: post #87
blub wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who funds a research should be written in bold on the first page together with their interest in the topic and any potential conflicts of interest. The fact that the contributions were not disclosed is highly suspicious. Google is also not merely funding works that aligns with what they do, it's apparently "helped finance hundreds of research papers to DEFEND against regulatory challenges of its market dominance ", w…

I am not sure I understand the outrage. We are, I assume, talking about peer reviewed research papers here? Regardless of who has funded the research and for what motives, the work has passed the community's filter for quality, significance and correctness. You might raise questions about the effectiveness of that filter, but that is a separate issue. In fact, it much worse to dismiss research just because of who fun…

It's pretty standard to include your funding sources in your publications, and some see it as morally imperative. That it was not included is suspicious. But yes, it's an additional safeguard on that filter. And I think you give the whole system a little more credit than it deserves. At the end of the day, the publishers need to make money and they need papers to publish. Don't just assume that just because something is published in a peer reviewed journal that it meets the highest standards of quality. It's very often not the case.
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