

Ask HN: Is there a RentAPhD.com type service? - shalmanese

I know Russia/China are pumping out plenty of graduate students with experience in Machine Learning/NLP/distributed algorithms etc. It seems like it would be relatively cost-efficient to tap into this stream of expertise. I'm sure it wouldn't be cheap but probably still cheaper than hiring a local person with the same skillset.<p>Unlike normal outsourcing, it seems like it's possible with this sort of work to keep it tightly scoped and have a well defined target to hit which would cut down on miscommunication problems.<p>Does a site like this exist?
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timr
Well, gee....everyone has champagne tastes on a beer budget, don't they?

If you truly need the expertise of a PhD to solve your technological problems,
then why in the world would you think that the problems are easier to
outsource than the mundane stuff where we _know_ that outsourcing fails
miserably?

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trevelyan
I don't know of any site of the sort you're looking for, but if you need
Chinese or English machine learning/NLP services, get in touch with us at
Language Systems Ltd.

<http://languagesystems.net>

We help people with a subset of NLP problems involving translation,
segmentation, content-extraction and search and have cost-advantages from
being based in China. That said we can't help you with distributed algorithms
and your desire to just hand-stuff-off-to-someone-else is a recipe for
disaster unless you can be very clear about what it is EXACTLY that you need
your systems to do.

Your best approach to working with NLP is generally finding the simplest
solution to your problem and then iterating to make it more and more usable.
As much work is needed getting and processing data as linking together
algorithms. If you blindly outsource you'll get what you ask for, but not what
you want.

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scott_s
The problems that researchers generally solved are _not_ well defined or
tightly scoped. Researchers do _research_ which often means the problem itself
changes as they explore solutions.

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wheels
I suspect the results wouldn't be remarkably better than using normal
freelancing sites and it'd be suspect to falsifying credentials. Beyond that,
a PhD does say something about a candidate, but presuming you'd want them for
a development task, it doesn't speak much to their suitability for performing
that task.

One place that you might have luck would be on the ACM job boards. Many of the
SIG announcement lists primarily cover open positions. While I'm often
critical of the ACM, that would seem to have a similar target audience to what
you're after.

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epi0Bauqu
<http://www.liveperson.com/> ?

Or why not just contact graduate students directly?

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shalmanese
timr: The difference between this and normal outsourcing is that I'm not
outsourcing the design aspect of it, merely the algorithmic development. Think
of it as a netflix challenge style problem. The problem would be specced
roughly as:

"Here is an input vector, here is an output vector, write an algorithm that
can translate input -> output with 98%+ accuracy". Of course, there would be
validation data as well which they never get to see.

scott_s: Of course, lots of research is by necessity vague but a lot of it can
be tightly scoped as well. Handwriting recognition, for example, simply
involves trying to improve an accuracy measure.

sireat: There's what? 1000 universities in China and I don't read Chinese.
Such an approach seems really hit or miss to me.

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timr
I understand what you want, but was restraining myself not to say something
harsher, because I found your question rather offensive.

What makes you think that a PhD who has spent 20+ years of education becoming
an expert in some particular research specialty, is going to want to solve
your core business problems on spec, for crap pay and zero equity? If you
think this stuff is so easy that you just can contract someone to solve your
problems _"with 98% accuracy"_ the way you'd order a graphic design from
eLance, then you have an extremely poor understanding of what a PhD is trained
to do.

(In fact, somehow I doubt that you'd order a graphic design from eLance,
because by now, most entrepreneurs know the value of developing an ongoing
relationship with a skilled professional. A PhD is a skilled professional,
too.)

~~~
shalmanese
timr, I'm not coercing them into anything and I don't have any illusions that
I'm going to get a PhD for less than minimum wage. If they don't want to solve
my core business problem, that's fine, all they have to do is not bid.

An ongoing relationship is a great thing when it's part of your core business
competitiveness. But for some tasks, it's simply a matter of getting something
that meets a spec and I don't see why outsourcing is not an acceptable
solution for this.

I short, I don't know where your anger is coming from.

~~~
scott_s
If you outsource the core technology of your business, then you don't have a
business.

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sireat
How about contacting appropriate departments at Universities directly?

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sharpshoot
its what academia.edu will become

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raffi
Yes. University of Phoenix. Err... wait, you want someone with PhD level
knowledge? Can't help you there.

