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No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

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Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#81

Post by keenbrowne »

fidotron wrote: post #64

There's something odd in this argument. If you come at it from a Canadian perspective Canada seriously spent on neural network computer science when almost no one else did (many in AI considered the entire thing discredited and impossible), now the (financial) gains from that are almost entirely in a foreign country. The US science establishment was all about buying and utilizing Russian rocket engines until he-that-…

Research is necessary but not sufficient. Also need access to capital (and eventually capital markets) and a sufficiently sophisticated legal framework/safety framework so you can enforce contracts at least most the time. Good research is just a vehicle for producing knowledge and talent.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#82

Post by nyeah »

triceratops wrote: post #71
xixixao wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dumb maybe question: Why couldn’t the companies with excess profits just pay they employees more in salaries?

Why would they do that when they could pay shareholders and themselves?

Right now, in the US, we've given them no reason. But that's not a law of nature. For example a country might have an industrial policy.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#83

Post by fidotron »

nemomarx wrote: post #70
fidotron wrote: post #64

There's something odd in this argument. If you come at it from a Canadian perspective Canada seriously spent on neural network computer science when almost no one else did (many in AI considered the entire thing discredited and impossible), now the (financial) gains from that are almost entirely in a foreign country. The US science establishment was all about buying and utilizing Russian rocket engines until he-that-…

How's China doing? They seem to have a lot of research going on that feeds into their manufacturing fairly quickly from the papers I hear about

China are certainly better at turning the results of research into products, whether that research was them or anyone else.

The canonical example here is 5G. Once again the US science establishment had the guy, he ends up doing the breakthroughs for polar coding, they failed to appreciate him, he left and ended up being funded by Huawei.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdal_Ar%C4%B1kan

The US science establishment isn't broken as an innovation engine because of Trump - it's because they're clearly rewarding the wrong things.

What isn't so clear is if Chinese science is creating Chinese startups. It may yet happen.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#84

Post by nemomarx »

portaouflop wrote: post #72
dexwiz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno about the last part. Rich people under 60 seem to be under the impression they might live forever, either biologically or digitally. Within our lifetime we see people trying to make their digital twin their legal heir.

I get the longevity angle (even if I think it’s not possible or even desirable) but digital twin I don’t understand. It’s like a different person altogether. Even if it was possible to completely clone a persona digitally it would not be you but someone else.

Much like grooming a natural heir, you can hope that someone will keep your legacy going, make decisions you would make, run your business, and so on.

I can see it as a rational strategy if you're worried successors won't be up to the job.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#85

Post by mplewis »

fidotron wrote: post #64

There's something odd in this argument. If you come at it from a Canadian perspective Canada seriously spent on neural network computer science when almost no one else did (many in AI considered the entire thing discredited and impossible), now the (financial) gains from that are almost entirely in a foreign country. The US science establishment was all about buying and utilizing Russian rocket engines until he-that-…

"real academic diversity" is doing all your lifting here

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#86

Post by [deleted] »

vladms wrote: post #69
xixixao wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dumb maybe question: Why couldn’t the companies with excess profits just pay they employees more in salaries?

Companies are controlled by shareholders who appoint the board who appoint the CEO. If the CEO decides to pay employees more, the board will change him because shareholder put money to get money out, not to give to employees. Companies can give "shares" to employees, which means excess profits can be made dividends out of which employees "touch a bit". If you would have your own company (privately own and full contro…

[deleted]

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#87

Post by JohnMakin »

mike_hearn wrote: post #56
galoisscobi wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think they don’t teach critical thinking?

Because whilst universities claim they do that, there is no evidence to suggest it is true. People genuinely trained in critical thinking would be highly skeptical of this claim. For example, - What exactly is the definition of critical thinking they are using? - Which part of a {computer science, art history, etc} course teaches this? - How is it assessed? - If it's a teachable skill, why are there no qualifications…

I've taken 2 required critical thinking courses from 2 different state schools. They were in the philosophy department. Why do you think they don't teach it? In stanford, for instance, they require taking 2 courses on formal reasoning as a prerequisite for a degree, which invariably includes critical thinking.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#88

Post by kevindamm »

Eridrus wrote: post #47
terminalshort wrote: post #3

> In the 20th century, U.S. companies put their excess profits into corporate research labs. Basic research in the U.S. was done in at Dupont, Bell Labs, IBM, AT&T, Xerox, Kodak, GE, et al. This changed in 1982, when the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that it was legal for companies to buy their own stock (reducing the number of shares available to the public and inflating their stock price.) Very quickly B…

Yeah, it's nonsense. I think the core problem is that innovators typically only capture low single digit percent of the value they generate for society. Bell Labs existed in an anomalous environment where their monopoly allowed them to capture more of the value of R&D, so they invested more into it. This is the typical argument for public subsidy of R&D across both public and private settings because this low capture…

Something I haven't seen mentioned in this thread or TFA is just how high corporate taxes were (and even personal investment taxes) in the 50s and 60s, and this influenced spending on R&D immensely because that investment wasn't considered taxable income. Tax rates were over 50% for much of the era of Bell Labs and Xerox PARC.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#89

Post by [deleted] »

photochemsyn wrote: post #20
terminalshort wrote: post #3

> In the 20th century, U.S. companies put their excess profits into corporate research labs. Basic research in the U.S. was done in at Dupont, Bell Labs, IBM, AT&T, Xerox, Kodak, GE, et al. This changed in 1982, when the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that it was legal for companies to buy their own stock (reducing the number of shares available to the public and inflating their stock price.) Very quickly B…

The article doesn't mention that Bayh-Dole made it legal for a university to exclusively license a patent generated by a government-financed researcher to a corporation. Prior to this, if a corporation wanted to have exclusive rights to basic patents, they'd have to run their own private research labs to generate those patents. Prior to Bayh-Dole, university inventions were patented but there were no exclusive licens…

[deleted]

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#90

Post by tehjoker »

terminalshort wrote: post #3

> In the 20th century, U.S. companies put their excess profits into corporate research labs. Basic research in the U.S. was done in at Dupont, Bell Labs, IBM, AT&T, Xerox, Kodak, GE, et al. This changed in 1982, when the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that it was legal for companies to buy their own stock (reducing the number of shares available to the public and inflating their stock price.) Very quickly B…

Ma Bell actually was regulated and mandated to put profits into research. It wasn’t a choice though they could go above the minimums I presume.
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