1. ML at Facebook and Baidu pay well so you could use that money to fund more effective things.
2. By working in these roles you have the ability to change how things are done. Certainly more than you usually could from the outside.
3. There's a big push in the effective altruism group on safe AI/ML. I disagree with this but that's a factor in their weightings.
No salaried employee is going to change Facebook's incentives to profit from violating privacy and selling their users' data.
Working at a company that does these things is no lesser evil in my book.
1: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-employ...
2: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/mqw86u/i_am_sophie_zh...
Seriously, what meaningful and controversial change has the rank-and-file (or even the managerial staff) at Facebook managed to accomplish? I'm not really asking for your opinion here as much as I am asking if you have any reports or information on the matter that contradicts the things I've heard or seen or read.
Why are you so certain? Their own employees feel that public pressure is the only way out, evidenced by their employees publicly speaking out or leaking things to the press to effect change. How, in your eyes, does this come anywhere close to a degree of certainty that change from within is possible?
I've read similar evidence about people not being able to do much, but someone (or some committee) is having an impact on research direction somewhere within the company (else they wouldn't have even started that research department to begin with).
Is that change from within? Is this not proving my point?
> else they wouldn't have even started that research department to begin with
You couldn't think of a single other reason to start a research department? Like, say, to say you're doing research but without regard for the results?
For a job board like this, I would prefer that the companies themselves are directly working on high impact problems that are a benefit to society and the environment.
Would also be nice to see a quick description of the impact each company is trying to have.