
Machine Learning in the Cloud, with TensorFlow - ner0x652
http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2016/03/machine-learning-in-cloud-with.html
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transcranial
They say that they make use of GPUs. Anybody know if this means GPU VMs are
coming to google compute engine? That would be amazing. AWS GPU instances are
popular but somewhat limited as they use older hardware.

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chimtim
Interesting to see the speech, vision API among others. I wonder what this
means for metamind, clarifai and many other startups offering an API for doing
something close?

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mikecb
Pretty nice model and makes sense why they OSed Tensorflow: write, train using
the API, and feel safe that you can run it on your own hardware as well.

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aub3bhat
Seems it hasn't been fully release yet, getting a 404 on
[https://cloud.google.com/ml/docs/](https://cloud.google.com/ml/docs/) nor can
I find it in GCP console. This provides slightly more information.
[https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/03/Google-takes-
Cl...](https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/03/Google-takes-Cloud-
Machine-Learning-service-mainstream.html)

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pseudobry
Access to this API (and docs) is currently invite-only. Sign up for the
limited preview:
[https://services.google.com/fb/forms/machinelearningpreview/](https://services.google.com/fb/forms/machinelearningpreview/)

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mikecb
Also announced speech recognition API also powered by TF.

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braindead_in
Tried to sign up for the Speech API, but could not find the Google Cloud
Platform user id. Would love to integrate this with our transcription editor.

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boulos
You should see the (pile of numbers) project id when you visit
[https://console.cloud.google.com](https://console.cloud.google.com) in the
upper left inset. Alternatively, at any place in the console you can hit the
Settings gear and select Project Info (which should have both your numeric
project number as well as your alphanumeric project identifier).

Disclosure: I work on Compute Engine.

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wodenokoto
Does Google have any academic discounts? I'm using tensorflow for my thesis
and wouldn't mind some free cycles :)

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dgacmu
Yes. Have your advisor email me (dga at cs . cmu . edu) and I'll send him /
her pointers to some of the programs Google has for faculty. Note: cloudml
alpha is a limited invite-only thing, so is unlikely to work for you on a
short timescale, but nothing stops you from using GCE as a source of cycles on
which to run your own install of TF in the meantime.

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thebouv
I have a lot on my list of stuff I want to learn about but machine learning is
at the top.

Damn you time! I need more of you!

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sandra_saltlake
Would love to integrate and work on this

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benevol
So if I understand the situation correctly, using this offer, we all feed the
AI Google is building, thereby creating another Google monopoly situation (the
AI system that gets the most training will be the strongest, thereby
attracting even more users/training and becoming even stronger).

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dgacmu
At the risk of giving a serious answer when your phrasing makes it seem like
you're trolling: No. The Cloud ML service is _your_ data and _your_ model and
_your_ training results (except as required for google computers to touch it
to train it and store it - but the results of that training are _yours_.)

The same question was asked earlier of the Vision API, with the same answer:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11128444](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11128444)

At a high level, you can think of it as having mostly the same properties as
if you rented a bunch of GCE machines (or AWS machines) and ran TensorFlow on
them, with your data stored in GCS (or S3 or whatever). The difference is that
Cloud ML handles the scaling pain for you -- managing the machines, starting
and keeping tasks running, load balancing, etc.

(disclaimer: I'm working on TensorFlow, not Cloud ML.)

