
Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI - monsieurpng
https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/28/facebook-amazon-google-ibm-and-microsoft-come-together-to-create-historic-partnership-on-ai/
======
thr0waway1239
I was starting to get worried about the data collection already happening
individually at these big companies. Now that they have announced a
partnership which potentially combines all this data together, I feel so much
better!

The funny thing is, the companies are ALWAYS going to put a positive spin on
this. Not very different from the WhatsApp "we won't show ads, ever"
messaging. Now I am in the camp which says "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool
me twice, shame on me". Almost none of these companies can be trusted at this
point. [1] Their refusal to ask OpenAI to be at the table really does not
reflect well on them [2]. And the less said about the tenured professors who
are now becoming company mouthpieces saying things like "we create products
which cannot make profit but which is meant purely for data collection" the
better [3]. And lastly, if these companies had such a sincere desire to
"improve AI for the sake of humanity", how about they start by letting OpenAI
(or a similar company) do a data audit of all the information they share so
that we can actually be certain it is not just a data brokerage masquerading
as a public service?

I wanted to say that I wish the AI community will boycott this effort
completely. I find it a bit worrying that this community now resides almost
entirely within the walls of corporate America.

[1] Interestingly, the only company which is even _making_ noises about user
privacy is Apple. Is it possible they saw something in this partnership that
they didn't like?

[2]
[https://twitter.com/OpenAI/status/781243032582578177](https://twitter.com/OpenAI/status/781243032582578177)

[3]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12428883](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12428883)

~~~
Taek
Modern machine learning depends heavily on data. If you have 100x the data,
your algorithm is going to outperform a superior algorithm in most cases,
because the data is the source of the intelligence.

It's a big, scary barrier for startups, for innovation, and we're running the
risk of creating data superpowers that can't be competed with. Some algorithms
don't perform well until they have a threshold of data. When that threshold is
attainable only by a company with XXX million users, you inherently get a
system where only those companies can innovate on the most cutting edge in
machine learning.

That's a bad thing for us, especially if we find those companies turning
against us. Did Google start putting a liberal spin on search results to try
to influence the election? We don't know! But we do know that they are using
their position to manipulate ISIS recruitment, which means they aren't afraid
to get their hands dirty with this kind of stuff. THERE IS NO OVERSIGHT! And
you aren't going to get a search engine that can come close to competing with
Google unless you can find a way to match their data volume _before_ you have
something competitive. It's a massive barrier.

Facebook is enjoying the same sort of entrenchment. I've switched away from
Facebook, and now I've lost touch with a lot of friends. They are my friends,
why can't I export them? Why can't I export the data that belongs to me, and
use it in some open-source format that allows me to reap the benefits of all
the work that I spent tracking them down inside of Facebook's private garden?

As a society, we need to start addressing these things, or we are going to end
up with Internet giants that we don't have the means to get rid of, and that
aren't at risk of being out-competed.

~~~
parasubvert
"THERE IS NO OVERSIGHT!"

Should there be? I'm not quite sure. I mean, personally I feel a lot safer
managing my own data privacy with what I give these companies, rather than
having a government do it for me. And I'm not exactly a libertarian, I just
think it's rational that this should be decentralized, the risk of a company
turning against "us" is a lot less than a government, given history.

"I've switched away from Facebook, and now I've lost touch with a lot of
friends. They are my friends, why can't I export them? Why can't I export the
data that belongs to me, and use it in some open-source format that allows me
to reap the benefits of all the work that I spent tracking them down inside of
Facebook's private garden?"

You can. [https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-
api/reference](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-api/reference)

All those "What does your friend list say about your love life?" type surveys
use it.

"As a society, we need to start addressing these things, or we are going to
end up with Internet giants that we don't have the means to get rid of, and
that aren't at risk of being out-competed."

We've heard this a lot over the years, but I've really never seen a case of a
company that can't be out-competed. Who is it up to to "get rid" of an
organization? On what basis? People stop using their services, and they stop
making money is generally how it works. Otherwise, Antitrust law is the main
mechanism today, isn't that sufficient?

People forget that Google didn't ask permission or get oversight or contact
copyright holders when building a search engine. They hooked a couple servers
on the web and started crawling it with their algorithm, and replaced other
search engines pretty quickly because they had a better service. One could say
that it's impossible to compete with Google, but I'm not so sure: Bing is
doing fine (if small share), DuckDuckGo is growing, etc. Adding more
oversight/regs to the Web just makes it harder to replace these companies.

I'm sure plenty wanted to "get rid" of Microsoft in the 90s because of their
attitude and growing monopoly, and certainly they were fettered by the U.S
DOJ., but looking back, the calls to break them up were a bit silly. No one
would have predicted Apple was going to become much, much bigger (some still
can't believe it).

~~~
xg15
_I just think it 's rational that this should be decentralized, the risk of a
company turning against "us" is a lot less than a government, given history._

Last time I checked, Google search had 98% market share in Germany, Android
had 78% market share worldwide. I don't see how you can talk about
decentralisation given dominance like that.

Whether or not a de-facto monopoly is a bad thing can be argued, I guess. (I
personally think it is) But if one is present, I don't see why handing the
power to a government that is (in theory) regularly elected and bound to basic
rules of conduct and transparency is _worse_ than handing the same power to a
private entity which is bound to nothing except the expectation to grow and
benefit their share holders.

 _You can.[https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-
api/reference*](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-api/reference*)

Until facebook decides to shut down this api - which is at their sole
discretion.

~~~
parasubvert
"Last time I checked, Google search had 98% market share in Germany, Android
had 78% market share worldwide. I don't see how you can talk about
decentralisation given dominance like that."

They're not legislated as the Official Search Engine of the EU. Microsoft too
once had 98% market share. As did IBM.

Also, think of China, where Google has no market share. Baidu will grow and
bide its time.

"But if one is present, I don't see why handing the power to a government that
is (in theory) regularly elected and bound to basic rules of conduct and
transparency is worse than handing the same power to a private entity which is
bound to nothing except the expectation to grow and benefit their share
holders."

If you want to entrench the western world to assume Google is a permanent
fixture, you write laws and regulations that make that assumption and turn it
into a publicly transparent utility. This is how Theodore Vail turned AT&T
into a monopoly for nearly 80 years in the USA. It wasn't necessarily "bad",
at least for the first 50 years, it consolidated and standardized service, and
provided transparency. But AT&T eventually turned against us by blocking
future competition, and it took 15 years of fights to break it up. Plus its
"transparency" also developed the presumption of letting the government have
access to its data carte blanche to spy on its citizens. Personally, I'd
rather not have an organization possibly run by Donald Trump know too much
about me.

We could also break them up, or put anti-trust fetters on them, but that
requires serious scrutiny before doing, as it might lead to massively
unintended consequences.

"Until facebook decides to shut down this api - which is at their sole
discretion."

Unlikely, given that API is the only reason anyone pays them money.

~~~
xg15
_They 're not legislated as the Official Search Engine of the EU. Microsoft
too once had 98% market share. As did IBM._

And then what exactly happened? Did competitors beat them on their own market
because of superior performance or better regards for the interests of users?
Nope. They discovered new markets and solved new problems which made the old
markets less relevant. It's not clear to me that this is a process that you
can trust will work in the future.

* Personally, I'd rather not have an organization possibly run by Donald Trump know too much about me.*

You mean like Trump Ventures which owns stock of Google, Apple, AT&T, and
Tesla (among many others)?

 _" Until facebook decides to shut down this api - which is at their sole
discretion."

Unlikely, given that API is the only reason anyone pays them money._

That argument makes no sense. I as a user don't benefit at all if some
analytics company has a contract with Facebook that allows them to access my
data. If users should realistically be able to migrate to another service,
they need free and automatic access to their data - which Facebook is in no
way forced to provide.

~~~
parasubvert
_" That argument makes no sense. I as a user don't benefit at all if some
analytics company has a contract with Facebook that allows them to access my
data. If users should realistically be able to migrate to another service,
they need free and automatic access to their data - which Facebook is in no
way forced to provide."_

That's not how it works.

You have rights and easy access to your data - always have. 3rd parties don't
get my PII unless I let them. Heck, I can download a ZIP file of everything
I've ever uploaded with a single click! It makes zero sense they would prevent
you from getting at it, if they did, they'd be breaking their own value prop
of a place to _share_ things, which by definition means people need to be able
to get at it easily.

Again, this stinks of non-customers trying to interfere with Facebook
customers for dubious reasons out of fear.

~~~
xg15
_You have rights and easy access to your data - always have._

And who would enforce such a right if we have no governmental oversight?

 _If they did, they 'd be breaking their own value prop of a place to share
things, which by definition means people need to be able to get at it easily._

Facebook's value proposition is people sharing things _within the platform_.
You can perfectly well provide that service and at the same time make it hard
for users to migrate their data to a different platform. They already did it
in the past. [1]

 _Again, this stinks of non-customers trying to interfere with Facebook
customers for dubious reasons out of fear._

Indeed. In this case, the non-customers are Facebook's users and I believe the
fear of entirely justified.

[1] [https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-blocks-contact-
exporting-...](https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-blocks-contact-exporting-
tool/)

------
gavman
>>"As of today’s launch, companies like Apple, Twitter, Intel and Baidu are
missing from the group. Though Apple is said to be enthusiastic about the
project, their absence is still notable because the company has fallen behind
in artificial intelligence when compared to its rivals — many of which are
part of this new group."

It seems Apple's lack of engagement in the community [1] is really starting to
hurt it. Did anyone else take away from this that the other big players are
not including them at the table/considering them real competition?

[1] [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-29/apple-s-
se...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-29/apple-s-secrecy-
hurts-its-ai-software-development)

~~~
tomnipotent
Why are you surprised that Apple isn't involved in a field that has no
material impact on their business? Outside of Siri and related projects, I
don't see where AI/machine learning has any immediate benefits.

Twitter and Intel missing seems like something to take note of, but I didn't
even think twice about Apple. I'm more surprised GE is missing than Apple.

~~~
eridius
At WWDC they talked about how they put AI all throughout the system. It's not
just when talking to Siri. It's things like suggested apps, photo tagging,
deciding when to refresh apps in the background, text prediction, and probably
lots of other stuff that I can't even think of because Apple's approach to AI
is to make AI largely an implementation detail of the experience rather than a
user-visible component.

~~~
wstrange
Apple makes great stuff (typing this on a Mac), but I really don't get the
adoration / mystic that surrounds them.

Those features have been on Android forever, but people don't call it "AI".

~~~
madeofpalk
Right, which begs the question "What is AI?"

------
tmalsburg2
What's the purpose of this initiative? Sharing technology? Hardly. The goal is
probably to shape the discourse on AI and its implications on society and the
individual in a way that's favorable for these companies. In other words, they
will try to preempt, counter, and suppress criticism of their business models,
i.e. the AI exploitation of user data in the service of advertisers and
others. It's pretty obvious why Apple is not on board. They have previously
taken the position that user data should be left alone and therefore pose a
threat to Google, Facebook et al. whose financial success is solely built on
the extraction of information from users. This has nothing to do with Apple
falling behind technologically.

------
apsec112
Are LeCun, Corrado, etc. actually running this? They're pretty busy, and the
website doesn't sound like them:

"We believe that by taking a multi-party stakeholder approach to identifying
and addressing challenges and opportunities in an open and inclusive manner,
we can have the greatest benefit and positive impact for the users of AI
technologies. While the Partnership on AI was founded by five major IT
companies, the organization will be overseen and directed by a diverse board
that balances members from the founding companies with leaders in academia,
policy, law, and representatives from the non-profit sector. By bringing
together these different groups, we will also seek to bring open dialogue
internationally, bringing parties from around the world to discuss these
topics."

This sounds like it was written by some PR person. Google and Facebook are "IT
companies"?

~~~
jacques_chester
> _This sounds like it was written by some PR person._

It probably was. The article is pretty clearly a press release with some
touch-up.

This happens a lot when the pressure is to be first to publish. Someone gives
you a completely-written "story" and off you go.

~~~
apsec112
That quote wasn't from the article, it was from the org website
([http://www.partnershiponai.org/faq/](http://www.partnershiponai.org/faq/)).

~~~
jacques_chester
I sit corrected.

------
ioeu
To quote Pedro Domingos in "The Master Algorithm" [1]:

> But everyone has only a sliver of it [information about you]. Google sees
> your searches, Amazon your online purchases, AT&T your phone calls, Apple
> your music downloads, Safeway your groceries, Capital One your credit-card
> transactions. Companies like Acxiom collate and sell infor- mation about
> you, but if you inspect it (which in Acxiom’s case you can, at
> aboutthedata.com), it’s not much, and some of it is wrong. No one has
> anything even approaching a complete picture of you. That’s both good and
> bad. Good because if someone did, they’d have far too much power. Bad
> because as long as that’s the case there can be no 360-degree model of you.
> What you really want is a digital you that you’re the sole owner of and that
> others can access only on your terms.

Does this mean that effectively all of Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and
Microsoft will have the whole picture? That makes me worried.

[1]: [https://www.amazon.com/Master-Algorithm-Ultimate-Learning-
Ma...](https://www.amazon.com/Master-Algorithm-Ultimate-Learning-
Machine/dp/0465065708)

------
ladzoppelin
Who gives a sh!t that Apple was not at the meeting. I think the main takeaway
is that 4-5 companies might control one of the most powerful
technologies/ideas of the last 5 years. Its already hard enough competing with
these companies how is this good for everybody else?

~~~
ladzoppelin
edit: "The group plans to make discussions and minutes from meetings publicly
available." I guess that is cool. But what about the competitive advantage
these companies have right now? Does anybody monitor that stuff? I am not
talking robots and singularity crap but rather companies that have means and
the ability to make every decision with ML and the data to create an
insurmountable competitive advantage.

~~~
mbrock
...except for the secret meetings. Those records will be secret.

~~~
ghostDancer
Those won't be called meetings but gatherings and exchanges of ideas,so they
won't have to be publicly available.

------
radicaldreamer
Seems like it's oriented toward lobbying and keeping AI from being regulated.

~~~
itg
Good, there's enough fear mongering about it when we don't even know where to
start when it comes to building an AGI.

~~~
treehau5
It's not fear mongering. Some of the ideas I hear from people on this forum,
from academia, and the likes are just downright terrifying, and we don't even
know what future AI will be capable of.

We have to decide as a society, and decide really soon how far we are willing
to take AI research.

We built the nuclear bomb, but we decided when to stop. We didn't build more
advanced bombs that could level entire providences, even though we very well
could have. I know this sounds ridiculous, in that we aren't talking the same
level of potential devastation, but it's the principle I am after.

~~~
Taek
AI is not a genie that can be kept in a bottle. Making a nuclear bomb is a
huge engineering effort. You need to build huge facilities, acquire rare
resources, and potentially test it somehow. It takes a lot of energy to get
there.

Software on the other hand, my computer is running tens of millions of lines
of code right now, and for stuff with heavy utility there's not much the
government can do to get in the way. Cryptography is a great example of this.
Cryptography used to be regulated, but because it's easy to pass around code +
binaries + keys there was really nothing the government could do to stop
people from using it. So it was deregulated, as an admission that if you
banned cryptography, you get a population without it pitted against criminals
who do have it.

I'm guessing that AI will end up much the same way. You do need a lot of data,
certainly a lot more than you need to get strong encryption, but data is
ultimately easy to move around compared to nuclear manufacturing facilities.
And it's even more open when you consider how much data is available that
might be useful to an AGI. If you give a human 500,000,000 hours to read +
process + innovate using just Wikipedia, you are going to get something
impressive. An AGI has access to any page that's reachable from a URL bar, and
that data is not something that needs to be passed around with the AGI
codebase.

Granted, I personally believe that AGIs are 30+ years away, and I don't think
that Wikipedia is enough data for something like a competitive NLP machine
using modern technology, but I think that's the direction we will be moving
in. We should accept today that AI will be a part of the future, and prepare
for the inevitability rather than try to run from it.

------
asimuvPR
_The organizational structure has been designed to allow non-corporate groups
to have equal leadership side-by-side with large tech companies._

Anybody know more details? As non-corporate entity the opportunity is very
interesting due to the potential of having access to their infrastructure. The
cost of running AI projects on the cloud is currently prohibitive and am
forced to run on performance limited machines.

------
throwaway6497
As usual Apple is missing. Pleasantly surprised to find Amazon on the list of
collaborators. They usually take from open source/communities and rarely give
back. This is a good change.

~~~
shiift
I agree. As an Amazon SDE this makes me quite excited for the future!

------
runesoerensen
There's more information on their website:
[http://www.partnershiponai.org/](http://www.partnershiponai.org/)

------
meira
> “We want to involve people impacted by AI as well,” said Mustafa Suleyman,
> co-founder and head of applied AI at DeepMind, a subsidiary of Alphabet.

Who believes that this is to favor users, believes in everything.

~~~
JabavuAdams
Actually, the DeepMind people seem quite idealistic. Whether they can maintain
that idealism in the face of corporate pressures is another story.

The character of the founders and engineers matters. Would you rather have GAI
developed by DeepMind / Google, or by Lockheed Martin?

~~~
hueving
Lockheed Martin, their revenue stream isn't based on mining your personal
information and communications. With Google at the helm there is almost no
chance this stuff won't be always executing on their servers rather than in
your device alone.

~~~
ucaetano
_> revenue stream isn't based on mining your personal information and
communications_

Oh, it is! Not only that, but their revenue stream is mining that data and
handing it over to the government:
[http://www.atl.external.lmco.com/business/ATL10.php](http://www.atl.external.lmco.com/business/ATL10.php)

~~~
hueving
Analyzing data given to them or public is not the same thing as exfiltrating
data from your users devices in misleading ways (e.g. Sending wifi info back
even when wifi is off).

------
jlas
Is OpenAI planning to be a part of this?

~~~
runesoerensen
Sounds like it:
[https://twitter.com/OpenAI/status/781243032582578177](https://twitter.com/OpenAI/status/781243032582578177)

~~~
jonathankoren
Actually that sounds like some shade tossed on this endevour. i.e. They were
either not asked, or had to pony up money that only a multibillion dollar
megacorp could part with.

~~~
runesoerensen
_> They were either not asked, or had to pony up money that only a
multibillion dollar megacorp could part with._

Perhaps you're right, but at least it seems like OpenAI would like to join
if/when invited. Judging from the press release it sounds like this
partnership intend to invite non-corporate/non-profit members soon (and I
think they'll loose a lot of credibility and support if they don't):

 _" Academics, non-profits, and specialists in policy and ethics will be
invited to join the Board of the organization, named the Partnership on
Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society (Partnership on AI)."
... "There will be equal representation of corporate and non-corporate members
on the board of this new organization"_

[http://www.partnershiponai.org/2016/09/industry-leaders-
esta...](http://www.partnershiponai.org/2016/09/industry-leaders-establish-
partnership-on-ai-best-practices/)

~~~
rory
Mustafa Suleyman has now added an encouraging reply:
[https://twitter.com/mustafasuleymn/status/781244827669147648](https://twitter.com/mustafasuleymn/status/781244827669147648)

------
dmead
should read

"Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on marketing"

------
GrinningFool
Five companies that collectively have more data on US residents' online
behaviours than all the world's governments, working in partnership on AI.

What could possibly go wrong ?

------
antocv
If you are working for any of these companies, you should really consider if
it is worth it, and possibly stop or switch to more meaningful and less evil
endevours.

------
pron
Calling simple statistical clustering algorithms that are tweaked by lots of
trial-and-error heuristics "AI" feels like calling those slow two-wheeled
electric self-balancing skateboards "hoverboards". Sometimes marketing can be
too dramatic.

~~~
ilaksh
Deep learning is not a simple statistical clustering algorithm.

Trial and error is a main way that people learn and it works.

~~~
pron
> Deep learning is not a simple statistical clustering algorithm.

What is it, then?

In the 60s people used backpropagation to train neural networks. NN + BP is a
_very_ simple statistical clustering algorithm. I know that when I worked on
neural networks in the 90s we still used backpropagation. Are they using
something different now?

~~~
gormo2
>Are they using something different now?

Yes, why else do you think we've had such breakthroughs in the past six years?

~~~
pron
No, I don't think so. AFAIK, deep learning is essentially the same 1960s
algorithms[1] (possibly modified a bit) running on much larger networks. Most
progress is due to better hardware (and ad hoc configurations, made possible
by the larger networks afforded by better harder). Of course, SAT solvers,
which have become extremely effective in recent years, are also still based on
a 1960s algorithm[2], so use of an old algorithm doesn't imply lack of
progress in effectiveness.

The two (NN and SAT solvers) share little theoretical progress (and certainly
no theoretical breakthrough) in the past several decades, but SAT solvers
aren't marketed as "AI" in spite of their seemingly magical abilities. I know
that ML researchers usually cringe at the name AI and often try to
disassociate themselves from the sci-fi term, but still, the marketing is
extremely aggressive and misleading.

I realize that in every generation, marketers like associating the name "AI"
with some particular class of algorithms, but it's important to understand
that currently, assigning that name to this class of statistical clustering
algorithms (regardless of their remarkable effectiveness in some tasks) is a
stretch, just as it was when the term was assigned to other algorithms.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpropagation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpropagation)

[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis%E2%80%93Putnam_algorithm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis%E2%80%93Putnam_algorithm)

------
keeran
Sad to not see Baidu on there.

------
batman_symbol
I remember learning about oligopolies and cartels in high school economics.
Pretty sure this is at its core, a form of collusion meant to undermine the
competitive spirit of the market. Ethical implications of this strategy are
quite dire at best. No one stood up to the robber barons then and likelt no
can now.

------
acronymftw
Hope they do not use that as an acronym.

~~~
tripzilch
PAI? PoAI? I don't get it.

------
newscracker
The moment I saw the headline, I noticed Apple missing from the list, and it
felt right! Facebook, Amazon, Google...Microsoft...IBM...all coming together
to promote (sell) AI? This sounds like the coming together of the evil powers.

Apple, however successful it may continue to be financially, needs to focus on
a wider penetration of its devices and services if there is to be any
meaningful dent on the privacy front around the world. Being a market leader
in one country (or a few) doesn't help much when billions of people around the
world use Android phones where the default is "ask for any permission and it
shall be given." For this to change, I believe Apple must go lower on the
price front, even if that means lower margins. It also needs to push forward
quicker on things that other companies don't consider, like differential
privacy, and look for markedly different ways of doing things compared to the
personal data hungry parasites like the ones in the title.

~~~
drukenemo
Good point. I find it funny to read other comments here of "who cares about
Apple not being in the group?". Apple is just one of the most successful
companies of all times and it demonstrates over and over to have a bit more
integrity and commitment to guarding user's privacy. Kudos to Apple.

------
watchdogs23
Wow that's really sad that they have refuesed to use the OpenAi operating
syestem which shows exactly how much the really care about there jobs
reflections

------
ghostbunnies
What could go wrong?

------
ionwake
Which is the best way to invest in the field of AI ? Can anyone recommend any
specific companies / branches ? Thank you.

~~~
paisible
One way is through hardware that supports the current wave of innovation, i.e
: GPUs.

Nvidia has been on a tear recently. I'd love others' input on this.

------
sidcool
Would be great if OpenAI joins them.

------
phodo
At the risk of ad hominem, this is typical techcrunch reporting:

>> "Though Apple is said to be enthusiastic about the project, their absence
is still notable because the company has fallen behind in artificial
intelligence when compared to its rivals — many of whom are part of this new
group."

How exactly is it that TC knows that Apple has indeed fallen behind? Are they
privy to the Apple ML roadmap? Are they using lack of open source activity as
a metric to make this claim? Is there an unidentified source who can
objectively measure the ML progress across these organizations, and using this
objective metric, conclude that Apple is behind?

It's a claim without much substance, and paints Apple in a negative light. You
could say that this is a marketing failure on the part of Apple, and you might
be correct. For example, see the article floating a few weeks ago on Medium (I
think) on how Apple was embedding ML in everything.

In the days of price performance wars in CPUs (and GPUs), there were more or
less objective (err, almost objective) benchmarks that people could point to.
This is not the case with ML/DL. It would be great if we could say: "Across
image classification, the precision / recall is X, vs. Facebook's Y. Clearly,
Apple has more work todo in image classification. But in Machine Translation,
Apple is ahead, with metrics A vs. B from Facebook..

What is happening with ML/DL/AI/whatever is that all companies are using the
same bag of words to describe what they do, but the popular press is not
discerning enough to make heads or tales out of what they report on, and they
end up mis-educating the public.

</soapbox> </rant>

~~~
aub3bhat
Honestly this comment reads like an emotional outburst, by someone who has
zero clue about the domain.

Its very well known fact in AI/ML community, that Apple has almost little or
no talent nor do they have any major efforts at organizational level (E.g.
FAIR at FB, MSR, Brain & Deep Mind at Google).

>> But in Machine Translation, Apple is ahead.

LOL where did you get this from? I am pretty sure that Google NTM which was
put in production yesterday is the state of the art.

Also there are metrics e.g. in the report released yesterday you can find BLEU
scores on WMT 2014 tasks, and the clear conclusion is that Google is way
ahead. Also when it comes to Imagenet or Coco challenges, I don't think Apple
has competed in any let alone placing anywhere at top, while FB, MSR and
Google all have had top models.
[http://arxiv.org/pdf/1609.08144v1.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1609.08144v1.pdf)

>> but the popular press is not discerning enough to make heads or tales out
of what they report on, and they end up mis-educating the public.

Sorry you are wrong, the sad reality (for Apple), is that they are truly 3-4
years behind FB, MSFT & Google.

~~~
aleeds
"But in Machine Translation, Apple is ahead." was an example of a statement
that could be made if metrics existed, he is not asserting that that is true.

~~~
aub3bhat
I assumed that he was asserting it to be true, because as my updated comments
shows, the metrics do exist. But Apple neither releases them nor does it
discloses the architecture/technology (if any) used.

~~~
phodo
As others have mentioned, you are completely wrong in your assumptions. It is
you who shows zero clue in reading comprehension and communication. I'm well
aware of the benchmarks used by industry and academia. I've been working in
the industry for many years, including multiple ML-based products used
commercially and running in production serving a large number of customers.
Machine translation was just an example, and there was no assertion that
company A is better than B; I was in no way "asserting it to be true". I was
merely providing an illustrative example to highlight the fact that * popular
press * articles about ml, such as this one, are quick with subjective
opinion, without providing in writing the necessary citation and metrics to
back their claims. Furthermore, they do so at a generalized level, without
going into specific subdomains. My initial post was intended as a constructive
comment, so take it as such.

~~~
aub3bhat
LOL Dude its "popular press" for a reason, otherwise they would be called
"technical journals".

And frankly how can you be so clueless about Apple's lack of efforts in AI/ML
if you claim to be member of the community.

------
rbc
Does all this fuss about AI mean the Lisp machines will come back? ;)

~~~
rbc
I'll add that I've owned both a Symbolics 3620 and a MacIvory. I was being a
little glib, but I wouldn't mind seeing some kind of resurrection of the Lisp
machine technology.

------
Bud
Oh, great. So all the companies that have recently had the most problems with
ethics issues and user privacy issues are now collaborating in order to more
effectively address those issues? Pardon me if my scoffing is audible.

~~~
oxryly1
IMHO ethics will effectively be _the_ defining characteristic of AI in the
future. The companies who innovate AI, however, will probably never mention it
except as marketing copy.

That leaves literally everyone else holding the bag in regards to judging the
industries actions and holding it accountable for transgressions. I'm not sure
how that will work out, but I'm not terribly hopeful...

~~~
mbrock
A major book about ethics, "After Virtue", takes as half of is subject matter
what the author calls "the interminable nature of ethical debates" and the
failure of post-enlightenment ethical thinking.

I don't see how AI is going to suddenly make us capable of ethical reasoning
on a large scale... unless... maybe AI could do the reasoning for us...

~~~
the_other
Are you talking about the AI we make which simulate a process we don't fully
understand?

~~~
mbrock
Yes. Maybe it can invent ethical reasoning that's obscure enough that people
can believe it—like a new kind of priest.

------
icantdrive55
1\. These companies have been collecting our information for years now. Some
have acces to what we write in are emails, but of course, they never read
them, they just scan them for marketing purposes?

2\. Why do I feel certain people's information has been looked at,
scrutinized, cross checked, collated, etc. by certain savvy insiders. Warren
buffet, George Sorrows, any of the financial movers and shakers, information
is sitting on a server somewhere, unless you're a Clinton. If I had access, I
could help but look at it.

Before you made an investment, bought a stock, bought realeste, took over a
company; wouldn't you be tempted to peak at some of that information?.

3\. I feel certain individual information has been used as research for
financial gain.

3\. I belive it's basically insider trading without the other guy knowing
he/she gave away any information.

4\. I believe it will be exposed, and will be the next huge Financial scandal.

5\. I believe this move might be a smoke screen. "We know some of us have
already abused private information for personal/financial gain. Let's combine
the data. It might put some reigns on what we all know some of our insiders
have been doing. Let the people think we are doing this to better society.

6\. I don't have any evidence, I just have a hard time believing no one is
looking at juicy date pouring in from some high profile people.

7\. I believe it will be on the front page of Forbes in less than a year.

~~~
sharemywin
If Foursquare can do this imagine what Google, Apple, or facebook can do.

[https://medium.com/foursquare-direct/foursquare-predicts-
chi...](https://medium.com/foursquare-direct/foursquare-predicts-chipotle-
s-q1-sales-down-nearly-30-foot-traffic-reveals-the-start-of-a-
mixed-78515b2389af#.lqsjmrf79)

------
bitJericho
Tc needs to be banned on hn

~~~
ayanray
harsh

~~~
bitJericho
Not really. Look at the comments on just about any tc article. It's a
marketing website disguised as news.

------
smoyer
Sounds like an alienate means for Skynet to become sentient.

------
cheriot
Apple wants to be on the right side of the anti-trust lawsuit this time. /s

------
andrewclunn
Okay, which AI are they talking about? The term can mean various things. I
mean if this were merely heuristic neural networks, one would think that Tesla
would be included.

