Apple Hires AI and Deep Learning Expert Ian Goodfellow | Hacker News Reader

Apple Hires AI and Deep Learning Expert Ian Goodfellow

cnbc.com

80 pointsshamino31 comments

Apple can probably poach all the AI people that don't want to work for a weapons contractor. Doubt Apple's going to be moving beyond consumer products anytime soon.

Especially with that infamous iTunes ToS

If you refer to the “not to be used to make nukes” section it’s a pretty standard clause for software exports in the US to comply with ITAR.

Kim Jong-Un clearly didn't read it.

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/ta0lh9phcr...

Interesting that the ethernet cable is unplugged

I hope they do. More job openings for me since I don't mind working for a weapons contractor.

You're going to slot in for Ian Goodfellow?

Nothing wrong with trying to punch above your weight class.

Why?

I don’t work at FAANG, but the general sense I get is that while there is no doubt top DL talent that should command mid six to seven figure salaries, it seems that with AI programs stuffed at both the undergrad and grad levels that things should cool off eventually.

More broadly, does success in academia usually translate to delivering business value? Are these companies betting on these researchers to come up with the next great DL architecture?

Ian Goodfellow already has come up with the next great DL architecture. So its possible he will do so again.

edit: thinking about your question more-as an AI person I think the business logic behind hiring AI research talent if you are FAANG is not that they are going to deliver much business value in the next five years but they may deliver astronomical returns in the next 25 years. when you have the financial strength of google hiring these people is not a very large risk.

edit: I'm an ML grad student.

I'm not in academia or at a FAANG, but I think that talented professors should always have applicable skills. A professor successfully running a research lab is basically running a small company. They need to raise grant money, and then deliver results, all while needing to mentor their employees. Because most of their workers will be students and leave after graduation.

So if you define top talent to be research lab or publication success I think that top talent will always be attractive corporate RD, assuming there's a match in the research area. I don't really know how these companies are evaluating their RD, so delivering business value is another question.

Interesting when taking their other recent hire into consideration: https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1122410_apple-hires-away...

Or an even more relevant recent hire: https://www.apple.com/leadership/john-giannandrea/

someone once told me you can coast forever after a big hit in the tech world. doesn't seem to be the case these days unless you jump from ship to ship.

there's probably a correlation somewhere there. Usually if you do a big hit in the tech world, you have hard work in your DNA.

Still won't help. Simple fact of life is: to attract research talent you have to let your researchers publish (and not anonymously like they started doing recently, but under their own names), and afford them considerable freedom in what to publish. There's no way in hell Apple will do that, with or without Goodfellow. Good for Ian, I suppose, but Apple will continue to languish in AI until it reconsiders its stolid, old fashioned ways (and/or starts paying crazy money to researchers so publishing ceases to matter as much).

eh honestly a lot AI people might give up publishing for a little while to work with/around goodfellow.

Why give up _anything_ and not go to e.g. Google Brain or FAIR or MSR instead? All three labs have dozens of people of comparable caliber _each_. At this point Apple is starting at a massive disadvantage, and they'd need to offer a radically better game to catch up. Which is something they aren't prepared to do.

If your researched is focused on Gans/adversarial stuff the specificity of working with goodfellow might out-weigh some other concerns. Also-hey-I'm not trying to make this tradeoff. I am just saying I can imagine someone else choosing to do so.

personally if I had offer from Google/MSR I'd take it over apple but I'd much rather work for apple than facebook even if yann le cunn told me I was cooler than sliced bread.

edit: also re-reading your comment I bet apple is willing to pay that crazy money. Goodfellow probably has compensation in 1-10 million range...

7 figures is table stakes for top people in this field. The question is, what the distribution is like for the kinds of folks they need to hire to get the actual work done.

Until Apple makes ALL of their services cross-platform, it's really hard to justify getting excited. I know in the US Apple has a strong presence, but if they truly want their services to exceed, they will need to go to Windows / Desktop Linux / Web / Android to compete. They were able to do it with Apple Music. Why not with Siri, iMessage, and the slew of new services they've introduced?

Why would they do that? I think a core part of their business strategy is creating cool synergies and features between products but restricting those features to Apple devices. It makes consumers buy into the apple ecosystem.

They don't want to support Siri and iMessage on non-apple devices. Those are free services, why would they give them away without requiring you to buy their devices?

Apple didn't become the richest company in the world by being cross-platform.

That was Google's fault, and look at how EU repeatedly punishes them for trying to not be Apple.

They already have a majority of people who are both willing and able to spend money. Why would they want to spend resources on people buying $50-$200 on Android phones?

Congrats, this must be quite a sum.

Apple can’t even show my iMessages in chronological order properly. Maybe they can train a neural net to figure it out for them.

I wonder if this means that Apple's positioning as the privacy focused choice is coming to an end.

Wow. I'm surprised CNBC writes articles about the career movements of "AI and Deep Learning Experts." How many of their readers care about the director-level hires of large tech companies?

Many, to answer your question.

That doesn't answer my question at all; why the snark?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com