Visual Information Theory (2015)

#1

Post by less_penguiny » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 12:59 PM UTC

Visual Information Theory (2015)
colah.github.io

Re: Visual Information Theory (2015)

#2

Post by tw1010 » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 1:28 PM UTC

This guy seems to have peaked in terms of creative output while he was on the thiel fellowship, and then abruptly stop once he was sucked up by google.

Re: Visual Information Theory (2015)

#3

Post by tyingq » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 1:34 PM UTC

tw1010 wrote: post #2

This guy seems to have peaked in terms of creative output while he was on the thiel fellowship, and then abruptly stop once he was sucked up by google.

Based on a ~20 minute or less reading/reflection of this post, or something more?

Re: Visual Information Theory (2015)

#4

Post by chrisweekly » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 1:35 PM UTC

Nice post: author has good communication / teaching style, and firm grasp of the material. The visuals help make some of the concepts more intuitive. Bookmarked.

Re: Visual Information Theory (2015)

#5

Post by sailingparrot » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 1:38 PM UTC

tw1010 wrote: post #2

This guy seems to have peaked in terms of creative output while he was on the thiel fellowship, and then abruptly stop once he was sucked up by google.

Maybe you weren't aware he moved to https://distill.pub/ ?

Re: Visual Information Theory (2015)

#6

Post by tw1010 » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 1:38 PM UTC

tyingq wrote: post #3

tw1010 wrote: post #2

This guy seems to have peaked in terms of creative output while he was on the thiel fellowship, and then abruptly stop once he was sucked up by google.

Based on a ~20 minute or less reading/reflection of this post, or something more?

At least in terms of public output. He hasn't published anything in particular in the last few years, whereas the years when his income came from the fellowship (judging by blog output, his twitter, and his academic CV). Can't say what he's doing inside google of course, but it's a shame it's not ideas and knowledge that can be enjoyed by us, the lowly outsiders.

Re: Visual Information Theory (2015)

#7

Post by kgraves » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 1:40 PM UTC

tw1010 wrote: post #2

This guy seems to have peaked in terms of creative output while he was on the thiel fellowship, and then abruptly stop once he was sucked up by google.

Agreed, very unfortunate and such a waste, extraordinary talent should go towards startups and open source software not the big FAANG companies.

Re: Visual Information Theory (2015)

#8

Post by pm90 » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 1:42 PM UTC

tw1010 wrote: post #2

This guy seems to have peaked in terms of creative output while he was on the thiel fellowship, and then abruptly stop once he was sucked up by google.

This actually happens to a lot of folks. I don’t necessarily blame them. It seems a bit unreasonable to expect a person to keep putting out good material forever. But I can only imagine that Google provides enough opportunities to express ones creative outputs internally to suppress the need to publish it externally...

Re: Visual Information Theory (2015)

#9

Post by tw1010 » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 1:43 PM UTC

sailingparrot wrote: post #5

tw1010 wrote: post #2

This guy seems to have peaked in terms of creative output while he was on the thiel fellowship, and then abruptly stop once he was sucked up by google.

Maybe you weren't aware he moved to https://distill.pub/ ?

Not trying to make a judgement about the lack of output or anything. I appreciate the work he did and the ideas he published. Mostly making a comment on the observation that outsider researchers being bought by google doesn't seem to produce the greatest effect on the open source idea-sphere. But he's free to do whatever he wants of course.

Re: Visual Information Theory (2015)

#10

Post by typo_hunter » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 1:45 PM UTC

tw1010 wrote: post #2

This guy seems to have peaked in terms of creative output while he was on the thiel fellowship, and then abruptly stop once he was sucked up by google.

What a toxic comment. Many people would consider DeepDream and Inceptionism to be the spark that ignited a lot of creative work in deep learning, which Christopher Olah wrote on while at Google AI.