The title of the job opening says computational chemistry, but the details indicate they're looking for someone with credentials in one of a few different computation / simulation specialized fields. If I had to guess, it seems possible they think those types of simulation design skills may be useful for simulating user social behavior somehow?
No, it's really about material science and biology, just read further in the ad:
Responsibilities
• Follow the latest progress in computational science such as material and biology.
• Solve real-world problems in material and biology, with computational approaches such as molecular dynamics, quantum chemistry, and machine learning.
• Optimize and speed up classical molecular dynamics and quantum chemistry algorithms with artificial intelligence and high-throughput computational methods.
Yeah, this isn't really that different than quant hedge funds hiring theoretical physics PhDs. It's not like you're actually going to be doing Yang Mills field equations to trade some stocks. They just need a guy to run some linear regressions, and can afford to find someone really really overqualified so they don't screw up.
Scientific Computing team has been focusing on tackling challenges in natural sciences including biology, physics, and materials, with computational tools such as Machine Learning, Computational Chemistry, High-throughput Computation.
Our goal is to create breakthroughs in natural science with new methodology and help the world.
Responsibilities
• Follow the latest progress in computational science such as material and biology.
• Solve real-world problems in material and biology, with computational approaches such as molecular dynamics, quantum chemistry, and machine learning.
• Optimize and speed up classical molecular dynamics and quantum chemistry algorithms with artificial intelligence and high-throughput computational methods.
---
Maybe they do some research related with biology and they need a Computational Chemistry expert?
This sounds like an entirely in silico research effort. It's also kind of weird, there's apparently no public history of ByteDance or Tiktok doing any kind of work like this. The closet thing is the "ByteDance AI Lab" but that seems to be recommendation-algorithm-focused, nothing about computational chemistry.
It looks like some of their people have recently left for academia, so maybe it's just trying to get people into their AI lab with the necessary skills? Honestly doesn't seem like a very promising role for someone primarily interested in chem/bio applications, though.
TikTok, Facebook and Twitter are pharmaceutical companies. They peddle quick dopamine hits. We're all junkies that can't/won't pay for the hits so they wrap up the drugs they give us in ad-paper.
This analogy is cringe because it's overstretched. Argument: For example, are books considered pharmaceutical products (typically not quick--that would be like "delayed release" medicine) just because you get pleasure from reading them?
Maybe they already have a list of individuals that they want to hire, and they are trying to write the job requisition to fit those individuals' backgrounds.
Tiktok/bytedance already have large ML infrastructure in place (GPU clusters), and since quantum chemistry simulation is moving towards ML based simulation, they have an edge there. Open source ML simulation software such as DeePMD-kit is already seeing contributions from Tiktok employees.
Hypothesis 1) Tik Tok believes AI/machine learning algorithms themselves are converging across fields, and the company is finding that its internal AI innovations can be applied to biology and materials sciences algos and, possibly, vice versa. We'll call this one the "data are data" hypothesis.
Hypothesis 2) Tik Tok has decided that it's an AI company, not a content platform company. This is subtly different, as the locus of intersection between social media and materials sciences is in the company's human capital, not the algorithms used. Call this the "Data Scientists are Data Scientists" hypothesis.
Hypothesis 3) Tik Tok, as an avatar of the CCP, is deliberately adding fuel to the narrative that its a national security threat, thus baiting Biden to shut it down, which would be hugely unpopular with one of his critical voting blocks. Call this the "Troll Biden" hypothesis.
All of these hypotheses seem really important from a geopolitical perspective. If social media companies become our primary engines of applied sciences, that would be a pretty huge shift. If the CCP is using Tik Tok to use cultural popularity to play chicken in the trade war with the US government, that's a pretty major development as well.
Users have been noticing Google's ads are based on thoughts they had and without any chance of correlation to whatever Google's AI could infer from previous interaction. Same for Twitter, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, TikTok.
Big Tech's algorithms have long been tapping into illegal surveillance of an unprecedented kind - besides the cliques of insiders who misuse this for stalking and harassment of children, human rights defenders, activists, minorities and everyone else.
Don't expect them to be honest about their surveillance.
They also have a internship for Quantum Research [1]
> Our team studies the electronic structure and other quantum chemistry topics using machine-learning-based ab initio methods as well as quantum computing technology. We aim at applications intractable for classical methods and expect to achieve breakthroughs in areas like chemistry and materials.
Most of these "computational X" people do one thing really well: solve partial differential equations. Incidentally, PDEs are also a useful modeling tool for all sorts of simulation and optimisation. It's why you see physicists in finance, for example.
This could be used to verify the quality of TikTok's data scientists.
They cannot verify them directly because they cannot publish their algorithms and data. So let them do science and figure out who knows his algorithms.
*edit: actually:
>Optimize and speed up classical molecular dynamics and quantum chemistry algorithms with artificial intelligence and high-throughput computational methods.
It could be part of establishing or expanding their research division mainly devoted to getting smart people inside the company, having publications and patents in their portfolio, or inventing algorithms that scale better with big data. There are open quantum computing and scientific computing jobs too.
[+] [-] cavanasm|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] c7b|3 years ago|reply
Responsibilities
• Follow the latest progress in computational science such as material and biology.
• Solve real-world problems in material and biology, with computational approaches such as molecular dynamics, quantum chemistry, and machine learning.
• Optimize and speed up classical molecular dynamics and quantum chemistry algorithms with artificial intelligence and high-throughput computational methods.
[+] [-] dcolkitt|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jollyllama|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] api|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] otabdeveloper4|3 years ago|reply
Which is a good thing, since the sociology we had before clickable ads was unequivocally less scientific and useful.
[+] [-] thih9|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vladf|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 65934|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eunos|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ProjectArcturis|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] melling|3 years ago|reply
“We choose to do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard”
But I’d be happy with a little Bell Labs at a few more companies
[+] [-] aaaaaaaaaaab|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] case0x00|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kuu|3 years ago|reply
Team Introduction
Scientific Computing team has been focusing on tackling challenges in natural sciences including biology, physics, and materials, with computational tools such as Machine Learning, Computational Chemistry, High-throughput Computation. Our goal is to create breakthroughs in natural science with new methodology and help the world.
Responsibilities
• Follow the latest progress in computational science such as material and biology.
• Solve real-world problems in material and biology, with computational approaches such as molecular dynamics, quantum chemistry, and machine learning.
• Optimize and speed up classical molecular dynamics and quantum chemistry algorithms with artificial intelligence and high-throughput computational methods.
---
Maybe they do some research related with biology and they need a Computational Chemistry expert?
[+] [-] photochemsyn|3 years ago|reply
It looks like some of their people have recently left for academia, so maybe it's just trying to get people into their AI lab with the necessary skills? Honestly doesn't seem like a very promising role for someone primarily interested in chem/bio applications, though.
[+] [-] addcn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tenebrisalietum|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] omoikane|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chazeon|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] czl_my|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whymauri|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sommer|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tsjackson|3 years ago|reply
Hypothesis 1) Tik Tok believes AI/machine learning algorithms themselves are converging across fields, and the company is finding that its internal AI innovations can be applied to biology and materials sciences algos and, possibly, vice versa. We'll call this one the "data are data" hypothesis.
Hypothesis 2) Tik Tok has decided that it's an AI company, not a content platform company. This is subtly different, as the locus of intersection between social media and materials sciences is in the company's human capital, not the algorithms used. Call this the "Data Scientists are Data Scientists" hypothesis.
Hypothesis 3) Tik Tok, as an avatar of the CCP, is deliberately adding fuel to the narrative that its a national security threat, thus baiting Biden to shut it down, which would be hugely unpopular with one of his critical voting blocks. Call this the "Troll Biden" hypothesis.
All of these hypotheses seem really important from a geopolitical perspective. If social media companies become our primary engines of applied sciences, that would be a pretty huge shift. If the CCP is using Tik Tok to use cultural popularity to play chicken in the trade war with the US government, that's a pretty major development as well.
Any other ideas? Am I missing something obvious?
[+] [-] JohnJamesRambo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] intrasight|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LeonTheremin|3 years ago|reply
Big Tech's algorithms have long been tapping into illegal surveillance of an unprecedented kind - besides the cliques of insiders who misuse this for stalking and harassment of children, human rights defenders, activists, minorities and everyone else.
Don't expect them to be honest about their surveillance.
[+] [-] abdullahkhalids|3 years ago|reply
> Our team studies the electronic structure and other quantum chemistry topics using machine-learning-based ab initio methods as well as quantum computing technology. We aim at applications intractable for classical methods and expect to achieve breakthroughs in areas like chemistry and materials.
[1] https://careers.tiktok.com/position/7150350193095002382/deta...
[+] [-] kqr|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] goldenchrome|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DoktorDelta|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tkk23|3 years ago|reply
They cannot verify them directly because they cannot publish their algorithms and data. So let them do science and figure out who knows his algorithms.
*edit: actually:
>Optimize and speed up classical molecular dynamics and quantum chemistry algorithms with artificial intelligence and high-throughput computational methods.
They are building an algorithm library
[+] [-] max_|3 years ago|reply
Physics may have nothing to do with financial markets but the math tools and research skills physicists have are useful in finance.
The same goes for Computational chemistry and analysing of data for a video streaming site
[+] [-] pcmill|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tclancy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dahart|3 years ago|reply
It could be for helping them moderate vaccine or climate misinformation, e.g., https://www.tiktok.com/safety/en/covid-19/
It could be part of establishing or expanding their research division mainly devoted to getting smart people inside the company, having publications and patents in their portfolio, or inventing algorithms that scale better with big data. There are open quantum computing and scientific computing jobs too.
[+] [-] wdutch|3 years ago|reply
0: https://foldingathome.org/?lng=en-US
[+] [-] nickpinkston|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] helsinkiandrew|3 years ago|reply