8 ms·

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,

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.

mikert5671 8y ago
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.
- naturalgradient 8y ago
  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.
  - mikert5671 8y ago
    But can they get the huge volumes of data they have tagged out? The real time pipelines and internal tools? The community of people they will be working with?
    - 394549 8y ago
      >>> 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. > But can they get the huge volumes of data they have tagged out? The real time pipelines and internal tools? The community of people they will be working with? It's highly problematic when a researcher pushes ethics aside in order to gain access to data and chase "long run ... scientific advancements."
    - gaius 8y ago
      the huge volumes of data they have See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - hackinthebochs 8y ago
    What actions by Facebook do you see as particularly heinous above what's done at Google?
    - mehrdadn 8y ago
      Can't speak for the parent but for one thing I don't recall reading about Google messing with 600,000 users’ emotions without their knowledge.
- zoul 8y ago
  In the long run the scientific advancements from these companies is a much higher positive than the negatives they have in the present. That’s really the main question, isn’t it?
- cryoshon 8y ago
  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.
- astazangasta 8y ago
  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.
yaseer 8y ago
Completely agree with this. 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?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- visarga 8y ago
  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.
  - yaseer 8y ago
    I agree with the general principle, expressed fairly crudely, that - good, innovative things (React) can come out of bad places (Facebook, in my opinion). That's historically true of lots of research innovation though. War (generally accepted as bad thing!) has advanced technology and civilization repeatedly. At least the scientists aiding war (on average) had some awareness that killing people is clearly not a good thing, and at absolute best a necessary evil. Can the same be said of the people at Facebook? The culture of their management is to be in denial about how damaging their service is to the mental health of individuals and society.
  - 8y ago
yulaow 8y ago
Honestly at this point it is also ethically "controverse" to work for facebook in any position. Obviously, in my personal opinion and I can understand that a lot of people don't care about it
- ahartmetz 8y ago
  Heck, you could even go as far as saying that Facebook is ethically "challenged".
  - windows_tips 8y ago
    I think you can go even farther, to, "intentionally malicious". Mark hasn't taken back his comments about his users being "dumb fucks" for "trust[ing]" him, as far as I know, although he has apparently said that he regrets saying it[0]. [0] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/09/20/the-face-of-facebook https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/09/20/the-face-of-fa... Source: research and I've asked FB myself
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - throwaway37585 8y ago
      > he has apparently said that he regrets saying it What's the difference between this and taking it back?
      - windows_tips 8y ago
        One could still think it, but regret that they said it aloud/sent it as a text message, such that others heard/read it.
tsieling 8y ago
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.
taneq 8y ago
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.
- gaius 8y ago
  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?
mliker 8y ago
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.
- xd2024 8y ago
  wait, one hour? I thought it took two hours to train on a large dataset
- yaseer 8y ago
  Oh I am sure they add value. 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.

mikert5671 8y ago

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.

naturalgradient 8y ago
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.
- mikert5671 8y ago
  But can they get the huge volumes of data they have tagged out? The real time pipelines and internal tools? The community of people they will be working with?
  - 394549 8y ago
    >>> 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. > But can they get the huge volumes of data they have tagged out? The real time pipelines and internal tools? The community of people they will be working with? It's highly problematic when a researcher pushes ethics aside in order to gain access to data and chase "long run ... scientific advancements."
  - gaius 8y ago
    the huge volumes of data they have See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- hackinthebochs 8y ago
  What actions by Facebook do you see as particularly heinous above what's done at Google?
  - mehrdadn 8y ago
    Can't speak for the parent but for one thing I don't recall reading about Google messing with 600,000 users’ emotions without their knowledge.
zoul 8y ago
In the long run the scientific advancements from these companies is a much higher positive than the negatives they have in the present. That’s really the main question, isn’t it?
cryoshon 8y ago
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.
astazangasta 8y ago
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.

yaseer 8y ago

Completely agree with this. 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?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
visarga 8y ago
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.
- yaseer 8y ago
  I agree with the general principle, expressed fairly crudely, that - good, innovative things (React) can come out of bad places (Facebook, in my opinion). That's historically true of lots of research innovation though. War (generally accepted as bad thing!) has advanced technology and civilization repeatedly. At least the scientists aiding war (on average) had some awareness that killing people is clearly not a good thing, and at absolute best a necessary evil. Can the same be said of the people at Facebook? The culture of their management is to be in denial about how damaging their service is to the mental health of individuals and society.
- 8y ago

yulaow 8y ago

Honestly at this point it is also ethically "controverse" to work for facebook in any position. Obviously, in my personal opinion and I can understand that a lot of people don't care about it

ahartmetz 8y ago
Heck, you could even go as far as saying that Facebook is ethically "challenged".
- windows_tips 8y ago
  I think you can go even farther, to, "intentionally malicious". Mark hasn't taken back his comments about his users being "dumb fucks" for "trust[ing]" him, as far as I know, although he has apparently said that he regrets saying it[0]. [0] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/09/20/the-face-of-facebook https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/09/20/the-face-of-fa... Source: research and I've asked FB myself
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - throwaway37585 8y ago
    > he has apparently said that he regrets saying it What's the difference between this and taking it back?
    - windows_tips 8y ago
      One could still think it, but regret that they said it aloud/sent it as a text message, such that others heard/read it.

tsieling 8y ago

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.

taneq 8y ago

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.

gaius 8y ago
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?

mliker 8y ago

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.

xd2024 8y ago
wait, one hour? I thought it took two hours to train on a large dataset
yaseer 8y ago
Oh I am sure they add value. 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.