I understand the call of money but I cannot help but feel very negatively towards academics doing this with facebook of all organisations. After recent events, they cannot pretend not to know the impact and damage their work may have here. Excusing yourself with "I am just a researcher, I don't have anything to do with how my work is used" is just not good enough any more.
I would categorically reject any collaborations with FB as an academic in ML.
I see Facebook as the least ethical, and least useful from a civilization standpoint of all the big tech firms.
Google is driven by the same ad-clicking incentives, but the one-tricky pony has been developing other extremely societally useful tech, like self-driving cars and other moonshot projects.
Apple and Microsoft sell products, they do not make users the product (on the whole). Together they pioneered computing revolutions, and I'm confident history will judge them for making a positive contribution (on the whole).
Amazon is a leviathan whose societal value I find more difficult to classify, but I genuinely derive lots of value from their service personally. It's good for my lifestyle.
Facebook on the other hand, is a waste of my time, mental energy and a drain on society. As an academic, how can you turn your mind to furthering its goals?
That might be true, but don't confuse FAIR (their DL research lab) with FB. FAIR employs good people doing interesting and useful research. They promoted pytorch as a framework, and it is perhaps the best framework for non industrial applications.
On a parallel line of thought, I prefer FB's React to Google's Angular. In both React and Pytorch I see the same elegant design. TensorFlow and Angular on the other part are unnecessarily complicated.
Even if Facebook were completely evil, why not take their money? They will benefit from your research just as much even if you don't take it, because you're publishing it. Are you concerned that Facebook is telling the scientists what to work on?
History will also judge Alphabet with a positive mindset (T&C apply!). Google did to web what Apple,MS did to computing. Google files patents but doesn't extract royalty from it unlike MS. I think next 10 years will be really crucial to Alphabet( not talking about Google here). The work Calico, Verily,Loon, Dandelion Energy are doing takes time to create impact. I think Google, Calico,Verily are going to make considerable contributions to healthcare.
Our products aren't perfect, and we understand that we have a lot of work to do.
However, the fundamental purpose of our products is to allow people to efficiently communicate with each other. Hard for me to square that with "drain on society." I have many friends who, via Facebook, found a connection that was life changing: from finding a job, a spouse, to a community to deal with the loss of a loved one or support after being diagnosed with a terminal illness.
One of the things that draws AI researchers to come work at Facebook is the opportunity to see their work make a positive impact on billions of people around the world.
The research done by FAIR is helping us do things like deliver billions of translations a day, provide automatic photo captions for people who are visually impaired, and help bring blood donors and people in need together. It also helps us spot when someone is expressing thoughts about self-harm so we can alert first responders.
But we also believe there's even more we can do to help bring the world closer together, to give people a voice, and to open up new opportunities for everyone. AI is a key part of that and we believe pretty deeply in the power of open research to help not just us but the whole industry.
Fb's research in computer vision has produced works like training a neutral net on large datasets in 1 hour, instance segmentation neural nets, and many more, and made the code and research public with nonrestrictive licenses. These are pushing the state of art! Check out the work yourself and then come back and criticize these scientists if you feel that their work is a net negative on the world.
The question as you so rightly point out is whether there is a net value added.
If we took their AI contributions and JS frameworks on one side of the equation, do you really think it balances the other side of the equation?
On that right side lies encouraging general disinformation leading to broken elections and even aiding genocide. Academic studies on happiness show using Facebook and Instagram correlates with poor mental health; that research has been replicated.
What product actively damages those that consume it?
Facebook is the digital equivalent of the Tobacco industry; good business that's bad for people.
Well said, and totally agree. They've had too many whoopsie moments and seem entrenched in not learning or changing what is fundamentally broken in their management and business model. They have no legitimate place in research or academia.
It's a bit of a poisoned grail, though. On the one hand, you're selling your soul. On the other hand, they have data beyond your wildest dreams and you can use it all for anything as long as it might make money.
Would you take that offer? Would I? Probably not. But I can see the appeal, and plenty of people wouldn't hesitate.
But I can see the appeal, and plenty of people wouldn't hesitate.
It will keep happening until these companies are a black mark on your CV, like say a tobacco company might be. Will people be so eager if it means they will be shunned by the wider research and engineering communities?
FB and Google are the only ones pushing the industry forward. The huge amount of data and computing power is what brings these researchers, its not all about money. In the long run the scientific advancements from these companies is a much higher positive than the negatives they have in the present.
Any researcher in this area worth their salt can easily get cloud credit grants and collaborations from Google, Microsoft, Amazon. I pose if you go to Facebook, it's very much about money.
This is incorrect, in my opinion. FB and Google are where capital is currently concentrated in the software industry; therefore, they are able to hire a lot of the top software talent out there. This talent is responsible for pushing the industry forward, and it often does so in a manner that is largely company-agnostic. This is why we get React help pages telling us to use Enzyme from AirBnb for running tests - because the work is being done by software developers who are building general infrastructure for the web, and who would probably end up doing the same basic work regardless of who was paying their salaries.
It's best to think of Silicon Valley as two entities: a mass of technology workers who build software, and a financial extraction function that attempts to extract value from the work they do.
tell that to the royhinga who were betrayed by facebook and subsequently killed.
i'll be waiting for the scientific advancements to be useful to the public. so far they've increased rates of depression, anxiety, etc while enabling totalitarianism.
yaseer|7 years ago
I see Facebook as the least ethical, and least useful from a civilization standpoint of all the big tech firms.
Google is driven by the same ad-clicking incentives, but the one-tricky pony has been developing other extremely societally useful tech, like self-driving cars and other moonshot projects.
Apple and Microsoft sell products, they do not make users the product (on the whole). Together they pioneered computing revolutions, and I'm confident history will judge them for making a positive contribution (on the whole).
Amazon is a leviathan whose societal value I find more difficult to classify, but I genuinely derive lots of value from their service personally. It's good for my lifestyle.
Facebook on the other hand, is a waste of my time, mental energy and a drain on society. As an academic, how can you turn your mind to furthering its goals?
visarga|7 years ago
On a parallel line of thought, I prefer FB's React to Google's Angular. In both React and Pytorch I see the same elegant design. TensorFlow and Angular on the other part are unnecessarily complicated.
rhaps0dy|7 years ago
sharcerer|7 years ago
unknown|7 years ago
[deleted]
schrep|7 years ago
However, the fundamental purpose of our products is to allow people to efficiently communicate with each other. Hard for me to square that with "drain on society." I have many friends who, via Facebook, found a connection that was life changing: from finding a job, a spouse, to a community to deal with the loss of a loved one or support after being diagnosed with a terminal illness.
One of the things that draws AI researchers to come work at Facebook is the opportunity to see their work make a positive impact on billions of people around the world.
The research done by FAIR is helping us do things like deliver billions of translations a day, provide automatic photo captions for people who are visually impaired, and help bring blood donors and people in need together. It also helps us spot when someone is expressing thoughts about self-harm so we can alert first responders.
But we also believe there's even more we can do to help bring the world closer together, to give people a voice, and to open up new opportunities for everyone. AI is a key part of that and we believe pretty deeply in the power of open research to help not just us but the whole industry.
mliker|7 years ago
yaseer|7 years ago
The question as you so rightly point out is whether there is a net value added.
If we took their AI contributions and JS frameworks on one side of the equation, do you really think it balances the other side of the equation?
On that right side lies encouraging general disinformation leading to broken elections and even aiding genocide. Academic studies on happiness show using Facebook and Instagram correlates with poor mental health; that research has been replicated.
What product actively damages those that consume it?
Facebook is the digital equivalent of the Tobacco industry; good business that's bad for people.
xd2024|7 years ago
[deleted]
yulaow|7 years ago
Obviously, in my personal opinion and I can understand that a lot of people don't care about it
ahartmetz|7 years ago
tsieling|7 years ago
taneq|7 years ago
Would you take that offer? Would I? Probably not. But I can see the appeal, and plenty of people wouldn't hesitate.
gaius|7 years ago
It will keep happening until these companies are a black mark on your CV, like say a tobacco company might be. Will people be so eager if it means they will be shunned by the wider research and engineering communities?
mikert5671|7 years ago
naturalgradient|7 years ago
astazangasta|7 years ago
It's best to think of Silicon Valley as two entities: a mass of technology workers who build software, and a financial extraction function that attempts to extract value from the work they do.
zoul|7 years ago
That’s really the main question, isn’t it?
cryoshon|7 years ago
i'll be waiting for the scientific advancements to be useful to the public. so far they've increased rates of depression, anxiety, etc while enabling totalitarianism.