16 ms·

Evolution journal editors resign en masse to protest Elsevier changes

106 points by panic 2y ago

TaurenHunter 2y ago
That must be because they see AI as the next step in human evolution.
- Xen9 2y ago
  The non-optimistic reality seems to be that AI will be the next step in evolution, but not in human one. It's far more complex to create smart AI from human than to create smart AI.
yawnxyz 2y ago
They'll just replace them with AI, or more realistically, "Early Career Researchers" — those in academia with less than 20 years experience (after graduating their PhDs)
- labster 2y ago
  The great thing about AI peer reviewers is how fast you get feedback. There’s no need to wait weeks for your paper to be rejected when reviewers G, P, and T will tell you right away your paper isn’t the right fit.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bookofjoe 2y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42524200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42524200
conartist6 2y ago
This tickles my sense of schadenfreude. > The mass resignation is the 20th such episode since early 2023, according to our records. Earlier this year, Nature asked, “what do these group exits achieve?” I'm beyond flabbergasted that people don't yet know the cost of alienating their truest believers with displays of rampant cynicism. To be clear I know nothing about this journal, but I do know that many companies are more eager than ever to see humans as replaceable with language models. Models don't have integrity though. They can slowly destroy your legacy but they won't build it like people will.
- mbreese 2y ago
  Might as well add the link for the Nature commentary, which in and of itself, is a pretty interesting read. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00887-y https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00887-y Unsurprisingly, the main motivator is greater control. But the article suggests that the underlying motivation is not just control, but rather to provide a better quality journal for their audience. For publisher-owned journals, the editors have limited power... and this is the problem for many.
- darkhorse222 2y ago
  If there's one thing I've learned from executive responses to COVID, it's that unless they are the founder with a personal relationship to the company, executives are short sighted sycophants to the market who hire short sighted sycophants. It's all a sham. As long as they get paid in the short term they do not care about the long term. Also, if it cannot be measured trivially then it does not exist to them.
- 0points 2y ago
  > I do know that many companies are more eager than ever to see humans as replaceable with language models. Let them do that and watch while they destroy their source of income in the process. The industry need to grow up.
more_corn 2y ago
Seems like unwise use of AI is creating a backlash. We should probably slow down the headlong rush until we can deploy this technology more wisely. I’m reminded of Apple’s decade long new product lifecycle. They iterate, test, ruminate, repeat till they have finely polished technologies. Sometimes it just comes down to filing the rough edges off, sometimes a re-think is necessary.
- viraptor 2y ago
  > repeat till they have finely polished technologies. They haven't done that step for quite a while now. I feel like people keep repeating that story from years ago. But it doesn't hold anymore unfortunately...
- talldayo 2y ago
  Apple's new product lifecycle is on life support, particularly with AI. 10 years ago Apple had the right idea - invest in OpenCL, court AMD and other GPU makers and unify on a competitive, complex GPGPU standard. Nvidia would have stood no chance, even if they continued researching AI. What baffles me is that Apple abandoned this completely sound theory for a risky (and entirely incorrect) bet on NPU hardware. They left OpenCL to bleed out, they simplified their GPU hardware to specialize functionality better, and ended up putting all their chips on the wrong bet. Now they pay OpenAI to run their models on Apple hardware, and apparently can't even do that without help from Nvidia too. It'll be interesting to see what future generations make of Tim Cook's leadership. He started the decade so strong picking up right where Jobs left off, and ended the decade with several antitrust lawsuits, ballooning subscription services and the professedly failed launch of one Vision Pro headset. Perhaps Apple needs a decade to file a few of their own rough edges down again.
  - digdugdirk 2y ago
    Do you have any articles/resources for someone to read more about this? I've only been hearing praise for Apple's chip strategy/designs lately, and I'm not up to speed on what you're referring to. I'd love to learn more about a different perspective.
mmooss 2y ago
What was the status of Journal of Human Evolution in that field? Can it be replaced, and if so, with what? Protests are a tactic in a fight, part of a strategy for victory; they are not a rain dance that is rewarded with good things from a supernatural power. Do these people have a strategy for winning?
- Nevermark 2y ago
  Not wasting your career being forced to put out crap seems like a pretty big win to me. I walked away from what was my dream job, and a large and growing income, after a succession of years in which currents of partner neglect shutdown my ability to move forward at any reasonable pace. A few years later now, and that big lossy looking move appears to have become a big win. But it really was a win from the day I quit, in terms of mental health and happiness, no matter how things could have turned out.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- aragilar 2y ago
  Based on the linked letter, pretty good it seems: https://x.com/clementzanolli/status/1872352787662852156/photo/1 https://x.com/clementzanolli/status/1872352787662852156/phot...
- Aurornis 2y ago
  > Do these people have a strategy for winning? Not contributing to journals they disagree with and moving their time and effort to journals they do agree with is a win.
  - ninjin 2y ago
    Indeed, in my own area of research there was the resignation from Machine Learning back in 2001 [1] which was one of the final nails in the coffin for publishing with any real restrictions in AI. Notable exceptions would be AAAI and of course regressive forces such as Google DeepMind that insist on publishing in closed journals like Nature, despite the rest of the field keeping their research public and open.
duxup 2y ago
> In fall of 2023, for example, without consulting or informing the editors, Elsevier initiated the use of AI during production, creating article proofs devoid of capitalization of all proper nouns (e.g., formally recognized epochs, site names, countries, cities, genera, etc.) as well italics for genera and species. These AI changes reversed the accepted versions of papers that had already been properly formatted by the handling editors. This was highly embarrassing for the journal and resolution took six months and was achieved only through the persistent efforts of the editors. AI processing continues to be used and regularly reformats submitted manuscripts to change meaning and formatting and require extensive author and editor oversight during proof stage I was the removal of proper nouns some sort of AI safety mechanism?
- Thorrez 2y ago
  I don't think the AI removed proper nouns, but rather uncapitalized the proper nouns. It sounds to me like the AI was trying to improve formatting, but instead made formatting worse.
- ciconia 2y ago
  The proper question to ask is why is AI employed to edit articles when there's already a team of professional editors in place?
  - fredfoo 2y ago
    To get them to train an AI to replace them?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - duxup 2y ago
    It’s a question, but it wasn’t my question.

106 points by panic 2y ago

TaurenHunter 2y ago

That must be because they see AI as the next step in human evolution.

Xen9 2y ago
The non-optimistic reality seems to be that AI will be the next step in evolution, but not in human one. It's far more complex to create smart AI from human than to create smart AI.

yawnxyz 2y ago

They'll just replace them with AI, or more realistically, "Early Career Researchers" — those in academia with less than 20 years experience (after graduating their PhDs)

labster 2y ago
The great thing about AI peer reviewers is how fast you get feedback. There’s no need to wait weeks for your paper to be rejected when reviewers G, P, and T will tell you right away your paper isn’t the right fit.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

bookofjoe 2y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42524200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42524200

conartist6 2y ago

This tickles my sense of schadenfreude. > The mass resignation is the 20th such episode since early 2023, according to our records. Earlier this year, Nature asked, “what do these group exits achieve?” I'm beyond flabbergasted that people don't yet know the cost of alienating their truest believers with displays of rampant cynicism. To be clear I know nothing about this journal, but I do know that many companies are more eager than ever to see humans as replaceable with language models. Models don't have integrity though. They can slowly destroy your legacy but they won't build it like people will.

mbreese 2y ago
Might as well add the link for the Nature commentary, which in and of itself, is a pretty interesting read. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00887-y https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00887-y Unsurprisingly, the main motivator is greater control. But the article suggests that the underlying motivation is not just control, but rather to provide a better quality journal for their audience. For publisher-owned journals, the editors have limited power... and this is the problem for many.
darkhorse222 2y ago
If there's one thing I've learned from executive responses to COVID, it's that unless they are the founder with a personal relationship to the company, executives are short sighted sycophants to the market who hire short sighted sycophants. It's all a sham. As long as they get paid in the short term they do not care about the long term. Also, if it cannot be measured trivially then it does not exist to them.
0points 2y ago
> I do know that many companies are more eager than ever to see humans as replaceable with language models. Let them do that and watch while they destroy their source of income in the process. The industry need to grow up.

more_corn 2y ago

Seems like unwise use of AI is creating a backlash. We should probably slow down the headlong rush until we can deploy this technology more wisely. I’m reminded of Apple’s decade long new product lifecycle. They iterate, test, ruminate, repeat till they have finely polished technologies. Sometimes it just comes down to filing the rough edges off, sometimes a re-think is necessary.

viraptor 2y ago
> repeat till they have finely polished technologies. They haven't done that step for quite a while now. I feel like people keep repeating that story from years ago. But it doesn't hold anymore unfortunately...
talldayo 2y ago
Apple's new product lifecycle is on life support, particularly with AI. 10 years ago Apple had the right idea - invest in OpenCL, court AMD and other GPU makers and unify on a competitive, complex GPGPU standard. Nvidia would have stood no chance, even if they continued researching AI. What baffles me is that Apple abandoned this completely sound theory for a risky (and entirely incorrect) bet on NPU hardware. They left OpenCL to bleed out, they simplified their GPU hardware to specialize functionality better, and ended up putting all their chips on the wrong bet. Now they pay OpenAI to run their models on Apple hardware, and apparently can't even do that without help from Nvidia too. It'll be interesting to see what future generations make of Tim Cook's leadership. He started the decade so strong picking up right where Jobs left off, and ended the decade with several antitrust lawsuits, ballooning subscription services and the professedly failed launch of one Vision Pro headset. Perhaps Apple needs a decade to file a few of their own rough edges down again.
- digdugdirk 2y ago
  Do you have any articles/resources for someone to read more about this? I've only been hearing praise for Apple's chip strategy/designs lately, and I'm not up to speed on what you're referring to. I'd love to learn more about a different perspective.

mmooss 2y ago

What was the status of Journal of Human Evolution in that field? Can it be replaced, and if so, with what? Protests are a tactic in a fight, part of a strategy for victory; they are not a rain dance that is rewarded with good things from a supernatural power. Do these people have a strategy for winning?

Nevermark 2y ago
Not wasting your career being forced to put out crap seems like a pretty big win to me. I walked away from what was my dream job, and a large and growing income, after a succession of years in which currents of partner neglect shutdown my ability to move forward at any reasonable pace. A few years later now, and that big lossy looking move appears to have become a big win. But it really was a win from the day I quit, in terms of mental health and happiness, no matter how things could have turned out.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
aragilar 2y ago
Based on the linked letter, pretty good it seems: https://x.com/clementzanolli/status/1872352787662852156/photo/1 https://x.com/clementzanolli/status/1872352787662852156/phot...
Aurornis 2y ago
> Do these people have a strategy for winning? Not contributing to journals they disagree with and moving their time and effort to journals they do agree with is a win.
- ninjin 2y ago
  Indeed, in my own area of research there was the resignation from Machine Learning back in 2001 [1] which was one of the final nails in the coffin for publishing with any real restrictions in AI. Notable exceptions would be AAAI and of course regressive forces such as Google DeepMind that insist on publishing in closed journals like Nature, despite the rest of the field keeping their research public and open.

duxup 2y ago

> In fall of 2023, for example, without consulting or informing the editors, Elsevier initiated the use of AI during production, creating article proofs devoid of capitalization of all proper nouns (e.g., formally recognized epochs, site names, countries, cities, genera, etc.) as well italics for genera and species. These AI changes reversed the accepted versions of papers that had already been properly formatted by the handling editors. This was highly embarrassing for the journal and resolution took six months and was achieved only through the persistent efforts of the editors. AI processing continues to be used and regularly reformats submitted manuscripts to change meaning and formatting and require extensive author and editor oversight during proof stage I was the removal of proper nouns some sort of AI safety mechanism?

Thorrez 2y ago
I don't think the AI removed proper nouns, but rather uncapitalized the proper nouns. It sounds to me like the AI was trying to improve formatting, but instead made formatting worse.
ciconia 2y ago
The proper question to ask is why is AI employed to edit articles when there's already a team of professional editors in place?
- fredfoo 2y ago
  To get them to train an AI to replace them?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- duxup 2y ago
  It’s a question, but it wasn’t my question.