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Comment by bashedly | Hacker News Reader

I'm hoping someone closer to the WolframAlpha team and work can shed some light on this - but is the extensive use of the first person warranted here? There's an awful lot of "I" and "I've".

Is the work being done really so directly attributable to Stephen Wolfram or is there a army of hard working individuals behind the scenes not being referenced here? I'm not suggesting they list everyone by name or anything, but a simple shift to something like "our team" would seem more generous. Of course this is all moot if he is indeed primarily or almost solely responsible for the progress being referenced.

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It's Standard Wolfram Style. You can see the same pattern in his "New Kind of Science" book - an interesting piece of writing, but the amount of "I", "I've", "my", etc. is plain distracting.

I understand so little of the topics of that book or this review, yet still very much enjoyed reading the takedown:

http://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/

"So much for substance. Let me turn to the style, which is that of monster raving egomania, beginning with the acknowledgments..."

That "New Kind of Science" review was a curious read. Surprising how the absurdity of software patents is mirrored in physics: "Wolfram has since retreated from normal scientific life, in to, on the one hand, tending the Mathematica empire, and, on the other, his peculiar scientific vision and method. The vision is of the universe as, if not exactly a CA, then a simple discrete program of some sort. The method has involved an enormous number of man-hours on the part of subordinates who are, as it were, enserfed to him, scanning the behavior of likely-looking CAs and signing over the rights to their discoveries to Wolfram; their efforts are supplemented by frequent lawsuits and threats of lawsuits against those whom Wolfram feels have infringed on his turf"

The gist of the article is that he sees AI as being so staggeringly complex that English will not be sufficient to communicate with it clearly, but that Wolfram Language might work. Since Wolfram Language is largely his project, a few first person pronouns are to be expected.

Wolfram employeees sign contracts giving Dr Wolfram credit for their work, in exchange for their pay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77Y6CIyyBcI

That's what the money is for

I know this is overly idealistic, but it seems to me that paying for "credit" (especially in terms of research) seems "wrong". I understand paying for ownership of the results of someone's work, or paying to state that the broader organization takes credit for the body of work produced by the employees. But for one individual to pay to personally receive credit for the output of another seems blatantly dishonest.

Copyright law deals with the situation you've mentioned in different ways in different countries. For instance, it is just illegal in Europe to transfer the credit of one's labor (or copyright). In the Americas, however, companies blatantly mention in the `TOCs` that they own rights over employee's all work.

Of course, the extent to which the law is actually applied in Europe depends on the conditions of employment and whether the employees have the time and resources to wage a legal war against their employers.

That's a very individualistic perspective. An opposite collectivist idealism can argue that all personal achievements rely on the support provided by companies, universities, societies, and countries (e.g. peace & safety).

Ultimately, how much did the individual contribute? There's a middle ground where we need to encourage individual efforts, but I feel like our society is biased to not recognizing the efforts of the whole.

Wolfram Research has several hundred employees. Obviously he doesn't do all of the work, but he is involved in a lot of the design. Not that I necessarily agree with the style either.

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