That's where we're going now then? My hardware is used to run your code for your benefit, the scraps of which I can only hope to see should I be so blessed by the gods at Facebook?
It's not like they're running Seti@home on your phone. Presumably you're on Facebook for your own value. The micro energy cost st the individual user will be a rounding error but for Facebook and it's infrastructure it could be a huge savings and should deliver better user experience. Seems smart to me.
They finally found something more obnoxious than downloading 2 megs of JS with another three seconds to parse/compile/preprocess css so that they can render two paragraphs of text.
Honestly outdoing that level of unnecessary client pushing nonsense is really an achievement.
I used to really enjoy coming to HN for some good tech/hacker/software news and to get away from the near ubiquitous political bullshit on th web, but over the last few months this site has changed for the worse.
I've had different accounts over the years since the beginning of HN, following pg, rtm, arc, etc. and I've never seen it like this. Differing opinions are what make discussions interesting, but this whole "fake news" horseshit Trump is pushing is just pure garbage.
A lot of the people featured in this story came from Microsoft. Folks at Microsoft/Facebook - any ideas as to why that is? Is it just that Microsoft is a huge and dominant institution in computing so probability wise a lot of people naturally would have backgrounds which came from Microsoft? Is it because Microsoft is (or were??) leaders in ML/AI and it is has recently become a FB focus area, so lots of hiring of Microsoft talent?
The article seems to posit that Facebook is structured in a way to much more quickly implement advances in the field into production than Microsoft. Microsoft attracted a lot of talent in the area but said talent gravitates towards whichever company is best suited to use their skills.
I think its similar in other areas, like storage... Lots of former Microsoft people at FB. Wondering how that impacted their culture, etc. over the last 3-5 years. They just recently opened a brand new office in Seattle also AFAIK.
Look, I get the investment in technology and desire to push the limits, but sometimes these kinds of articles reveal a type of hubris that doesn't sit well with me.
>Facebook today cannot exist without AI. Every time you use Facebook or Instagram or Messenger, you may not realize it, but your experiences are being powered by AI.
It's not a "strong statement" as much as it is belligerently arrogant to the point of misguided. Facebook is its Users. No amount of AI can sell advertising the way Users can. And, last time I checked, it's still the User clicking around and having experiences.
AI is a servant and, for the foreseeable future, an extremely limited and immature one. Sure, in time it will help a lot of mundane things go more smoothly.
Like with this:
>For images and video, the AML team has built a machine learning vision platform called Lumos.
Great! Now Facebook can end the scourge of Freebooting and Copyright Infringement once and for all! I dearly look forward to the highly publicized ban-hammer drops! Because that's one of the main reasons those tools exist, right, to serve the actual creators and not the Facebook ecosystem at the end of the day? Oh. Right.
"And, last time I checked, it's still the User clicking around and having experiences."
On a giant request, query, storage, and analysis engine that predates the AI trends. I'm sure Facebook uses plenty of machine learning algorithms but I wouldn't call it an AI company at this point. It's an advertising, media, and communication company that relies on user-generated content and ad networks. That's not as cool as an AI company, though. ;)
>... metrics on how well the company has managed to reduce fake news
Or an arrogance in how they believe it's fine (if not their duty) to censor news stories, as they deem fit, almost as if people of voting age can't think for themselves.
Was it already "censorship" when Facebook didn't present me, a card-carrying socialist, with far-right websites in my feed? Or is it "censorship" when they start taking USUncut out of my feed because, frankly, its journalistic quality is crap?
Which one of these was censorship? Does Fox News have a right to show up in my feed, given that I very much don't want to see it?
A small group of people doesn't get to say what is true, and then impose it on everyone else, without being called arrogant, infantilizing of their own users, or simply pushing politics (which is not farfetched given their execs had such strong ties to one party last election). You should have the ability to curate your own feed even if by managing your friends, but the buck stops there.
While I would never say the Facebook staff are intellectual authority figures, I think that "a small group of people doesn't get to say what is true" is just plain false. A small group of people tell the rest of us what's true all the time. They're called domain experts.
>You should have the ability to curate your own feed even if by managing your friends, but the buck stops there.
The feed is generated by an algorithm designed to maximize the chance I click links from my feed. It has never been a rote concatenation of my Facebook friends' walls/timelines/whatever-they're-called-today.
That kind of concatenation and interleaving of content from my friends would be an improvement. It's just not what we ever had at any point. Facebook has not suddenly acquired a bias or agenda. It's been filter-bubbling everyone since forever, and now people have objected that some of what it feeds them in their own personal bubble is bullshit.
Judging by the number of people I see on my feed who share Onion articles without realizing they're satire, it's pretty clear that the ability of many to think for themselves is lacking.
"Facebook is its Users. No amount of AI can sell advertising the way Users can. And, last time I checked, it's still the User clicking around and having experiences."
I think you might be over reacting to this language, I believe the intent of the original article was to say that "the current Facebook USER EXPERIENCE cannot exist without AI" - clearly there are other things (users, user engagement) that make up integral parts of Facebook. No one is saying the product is AI.
The fact that these "algorithms" and "deep learning" and "AI"s are applied to facebook is exactly the thing that makes me not want to use it.
I want a chronologically ordered list of the things my friends post. That's it. I get that ads are a necessary evil, but I don't like some AI picking and choosing what posts I get to see and what I don't. I don't trust facebook anymore, and I want to move off it - I just can't because that's where everybody is.
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[ 504 ms ] story [ 973 ms ] thread“By running complex neural nets on the phone, you’re putting AI in the hands of everybody,”
The impact to people won't be the cost but rather the decreased battery life.
What you get back is more relevant ads err content err you stay longer attached to the ad screen err to your phone.
They seem to think we find this valuable.
Honestly outdoing that level of unnecessary client pushing nonsense is really an achievement.
To say nothing of all the other plans Facebook has for it...
I've had different accounts over the years since the beginning of HN, following pg, rtm, arc, etc. and I've never seen it like this. Differing opinions are what make discussions interesting, but this whole "fake news" horseshit Trump is pushing is just pure garbage.
>Facebook today cannot exist without AI. Every time you use Facebook or Instagram or Messenger, you may not realize it, but your experiences are being powered by AI.
It's not a "strong statement" as much as it is belligerently arrogant to the point of misguided. Facebook is its Users. No amount of AI can sell advertising the way Users can. And, last time I checked, it's still the User clicking around and having experiences.
AI is a servant and, for the foreseeable future, an extremely limited and immature one. Sure, in time it will help a lot of mundane things go more smoothly.
Like with this:
>For images and video, the AML team has built a machine learning vision platform called Lumos.
Great! Now Facebook can end the scourge of Freebooting and Copyright Infringement once and for all! I dearly look forward to the highly publicized ban-hammer drops! Because that's one of the main reasons those tools exist, right, to serve the actual creators and not the Facebook ecosystem at the end of the day? Oh. Right.
On a giant request, query, storage, and analysis engine that predates the AI trends. I'm sure Facebook uses plenty of machine learning algorithms but I wouldn't call it an AI company at this point. It's an advertising, media, and communication company that relies on user-generated content and ad networks. That's not as cool as an AI company, though. ;)
Or an arrogance in how they believe it's fine (if not their duty) to censor news stories, as they deem fit, almost as if people of voting age can't think for themselves.
Which one of these was censorship? Does Fox News have a right to show up in my feed, given that I very much don't want to see it?
The pope didn't endorse Donald Trump. That is objective fact. Yet that popped up on facebook.
Why shouldn't they censor that shit?
>You should have the ability to curate your own feed even if by managing your friends, but the buck stops there.
The feed is generated by an algorithm designed to maximize the chance I click links from my feed. It has never been a rote concatenation of my Facebook friends' walls/timelines/whatever-they're-called-today.
That kind of concatenation and interleaving of content from my friends would be an improvement. It's just not what we ever had at any point. Facebook has not suddenly acquired a bias or agenda. It's been filter-bubbling everyone since forever, and now people have objected that some of what it feeds them in their own personal bubble is bullshit.
I think you might be over reacting to this language, I believe the intent of the original article was to say that "the current Facebook USER EXPERIENCE cannot exist without AI" - clearly there are other things (users, user engagement) that make up integral parts of Facebook. No one is saying the product is AI.
I want a chronologically ordered list of the things my friends post. That's it. I get that ads are a necessary evil, but I don't like some AI picking and choosing what posts I get to see and what I don't. I don't trust facebook anymore, and I want to move off it - I just can't because that's where everybody is.