

Learning Machines and the Future of Academics - goodweeds
http://stochasticresonance.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/learning-machines-and-the-future-of-academics/

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jal278
The idea of an 'open-source' replacement academia is compelling. Currently
academia generally has partial transparency and a closed competitiveness
between research groups, where replicating results is non-trivial (at least in
the comp sci research field I am in where sharing source is not standard).

The analogy of a git-hub for experiments makes sense; research is about
expanding knowledge freely. In contrast, the partial disclosure and under-
sharing of tricks of the trade between research groups is about the entrenched
interests of particular groups.

The article makes a strong case for a system that removes the inefficiencies
of the status quo, that disrupts the current university system, because that
institution is no longer serving its initial purpose as well as it could be.

However, what is less clear, is what financial system would provide incentives
in the academia-github system? Would the traditional advisor/advisee
relationship provided in PhD programs also be substituted for something else?
Would more people be doing volunteer research instead of being paid for it?

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_delirium
Yeah, I think the financial incentives lie at the heart of it. While there are
people who are just jerks, a lot of the jerkish behavior is because it's
incentivized: if you're thrown into a hyper-competitive environment where
you're pitted against other researchers for a limited number of tenure slots
and grant funding, it doesn't encourage sharing. You _could_ share that great
data set you collected, but all you'll get in return is some fuzzy thanks,
while if you keep it proprietary you might get another 2-3 journal papers out
of it, which'll get you tenure+grants.

I think fixing those incentives is the key to fixing that. Alas, I see it
mostly going in the other direction: universities are moving more and more
towards a quantified business-type model, where professors are judged wholly
on money brought in and publication metrics, and the competition is only
getting fiercer. If someone wants to be open/sharing/generous with research
_and_ have a job, it's not impossible, but it's fighting against the system
more than with it.

~~~
littleidea
Rational agents at a Nash Equilibrium.

