Apple AI researchers gagged no more, now allowed to publish and confer with colleagues

AppleInsiderAppleInsider
Posted:
in General Discussion edited December 2016
After years of silence from Apple's researchers over fear of losing commercial intellectual property, the company is now allowing employees in artificial intelligence to not only publish their research, but also interface with other academics in the field to further the overall development of the technology.




At Tuesday's Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) conference, Apple Director of Artificial Intelligence Research Russ Salakhutdinov made the announcement on a slide during his presentation. The shift is a sea change in Apple's normal policies, with the company eschewing the more open approach that Facebook and Google take with their research and researchers.

Apple has found it historically difficult to recruit top minds in Artificial Intelligence, as the company's stance on preventing researchers from sharing findings, as well as the company's consumer privacy policies hindering product development has caused problems for researchers.

Beyond Siri, Apple appears to be branching out into other avenues of artificial intelligence and machine learning. In an interview in August, Apple CEO Tim Cook called AI one of Apple's core technologies for the future.

Apple will start publishing, according to @rsalakhu at #nips2016 pic.twitter.com/I0ndKKc2vB

-- hardmaru (@hardmaru)


Cook has also recently revealed that Apple's Yokohama, Japan, research facility will boast "deep engineering" for machine learning, far different from Apple's Siri voice assistant.

Apple is also rumored to be utilizing the technology for self-driving car systems, as an offshoot of the "Project Titan" whole-car program.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 43
    apple jockeyapple jockey Posts: 168member
    I am glad to see Apple mixing it up in the AI realm with other scientist and engineers. Long overdue in this field! iMHO.
    ration al
  • Reply 2 of 43
    blastdoorblastdoor Posts: 3,289member
    Nice to see that Apple can be flexible.


    tyler82ration al
  • Reply 3 of 43
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    Good news. When their researchers can talk then Apple will benefit as well. 
    edited December 2016 slprescottration al
  • Reply 4 of 43
    apple jockeyapple jockey Posts: 168member
    In some,cases, a rising sea floats all boats. This field of study will be advanced greatly by the free flow of information among the leading edge thinkers in Tech and by academics.
    Rayz2016ration al
  • Reply 5 of 43
    cwingravcwingrav Posts: 83member
    Their ability to hire just shot through the roof. Happy to see this development. Academics don't like working in the dark. It's not in their DNA. Literally.
    Rayz2016ration al
  • Reply 6 of 43
    apple jockeyapple jockey Posts: 168member
    My guess is that pushback within Apple and the discipline as a whole became to profound to ignore.
  • Reply 7 of 43
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,213member
    Kudos to Apple. 
  • Reply 8 of 43
    bloggerblogbloggerblog Posts: 2,464member
    Well done, great move in the right direction! But thanks to Apple's old managers, it is stuck in the old style management, and companies like Google and Microsoft are quickly innovating modern working environments and attracting better talent. Just look how fast Microsoft has caught up with Apple. Apple professionals are praising the Surface Studio and crapping on the new MBP.
  • Reply 9 of 43
    calicali Posts: 3,494member
     Doesn't this just mean Apple and rhe copycats will offer an identical product? 

     I don't think it's fair that Apple does all the hard work for others to monetize on. 
  • Reply 10 of 43
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,213member
    cali said:
     Doesn't this just mean Apple and rhe copycats will offer an identical product? 

     I don't think it's fair that Apple does all the hard work for others to monetize on. 
    You accidently omitted the sarcasm tag. At least I would assume so. There's a lot of "hard work" that's already been done that had nothing at all to do with Apple efforts, not that they won't obviously have contributions to make.  If Apple thought they were the AI leader and worth more to hold all the cards close to their chest as they have with other tech efforts they would. They obviously see more value in sharing information and garnering feedback and advice from others doing "hard work" too.
    edited December 2016
  • Reply 11 of 43
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Well done, great move in the right direction! But thanks to Apple's old managers, it is stuck in the old style management, and companies like Google and Microsoft are quickly innovating modern working environments and attracting better talent. Just look how fast Microsoft has caught up with Apple. Apple professionals are praising the Surface Studio and crapping on the new MBP.
    The idea of the Surface Studio exceeds the execution. Leo Laporte (twit.tv) got one and it suffers from the same old Windows OS garbage it always had. 
    edited December 2016 ration alwatto_cobra
  • Reply 12 of 43
    sirlance99sirlance99 Posts: 1,293member
    cali said:
     Doesn't this just mean Apple and rhe copycats will offer an identical product? 

     I don't think it's fair that Apple does all the hard work for others to monetize on. 
    What hard work is that? If people from Apple can't publish the research papers and get peer reviewed they are no longer relevant in the system. You HAVE to publish your papers to be considered relevant in any way. Otherwise you die out and are no longer employable. Everyone else meanwhile are already doing the hard work and getting papers published and pushing the system forward. This is how science works. 
    apple jockey
  • Reply 13 of 43
    holyoneholyone Posts: 398member
    apple jockey said:
    My guess is that pushback within Apple and the discipline as a whole became to profound to ignore.
    Also the car is hole bag of cats I'd guess on the AI front. Personally I never got the desire by these engineers to publish I get collaborating and cooperation but, why does that mean disclosure of IP, the only thing I can think of is Nobel Prize chasing, ether way, any thing to improve Siri is more than welcomed
  • Reply 14 of 43
    canukstormcanukstorm Posts: 2,700member
    sog35 said:
    FINALLY!!!

    This was what I was pushing for.

    Privacy is nice and dandy, but not if it stops innovation.

    Tim Cook is finally seeing the light.
    This is definitely a good move but I don't see how this undermines Apple's privacy efforts. If I understand correctly, they're not mutually exclusive.
    gatorguyStrangeDaysanome
  • Reply 15 of 43
    holyoneholyone Posts: 398member
    sirlance99 said:
    cali said:
     Doesn't this just mean Apple and rhe copycats will offer an identical product? 

     I don't think it's fair that Apple does all the hard work for others to monetize on. 
    What hard work is that? If people from Apple can't publish the research papers and get peer reviewed they are no longer relevant in the system. You HAVE to publish your papers to be considered relevant in any way. Otherwise you die out and are no longer employable. Everyone else meanwhile are already doing the hard work and getting papers published and pushing the system forward. This is how science works. 
    But isn't that more so in Physics where the majority of the work is purely theoretical with little real world application? As I understand it AI is being pursued by scientist but engineers who build applicable technologies, why would Apple want to fund research to improve its employee's résumés so they can be more employable els where ? I mean isn't AI basically softwear why is the a need for peer reviews ? Nothing on iOS is peer reviewed as far as I know
  • Reply 16 of 43
    DonvermoDonvermo Posts: 61member
    sog35 said:
    FINALLY!!!

    This was what I was pushing for.

    Privacy is nice and dandy, but not if it stops innovation.

    Tim Cook is finally seeing the light.
    The article talks about sharing research done by Apple, not about sharing personal and private user data from users to enhance the AI.
    StrangeDaysSpamSandwichwatto_cobra
  • Reply 17 of 43
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,213member
    canukstorm said:
    sog35 said:
    FINALLY!!!

    This was what I was pushing for.

    Privacy is nice and dandy, but not if it stops innovation.

    Tim Cook is finally seeing the light.
    This is definitely a good move but I don't see how this undermines Apple's privacy efforts. If I understand correctly, they're not mutually exclusive.
    Correct.
    SpamSandwich
  • Reply 18 of 43
    loquiturloquitur Posts: 137member
    Good to see this.  This is among the reasons why I turned down the opportunity to work
    at NeXT and Apple.  I actually was cheeky enough to tell Jobs in person that since many
    science types build upon and share the work of others, he might have a hard time recruiting.  
    His anti-academic attitude culminated in eliminating the Apple corporate library.
    Also the bit about not revealing what a software engineer might be working on
    until actually accepting a position was off-putting, but that is common with many
    other private-sector companies.

    Notwithstanding, Apple did get enough good folks to do great work, and I admire Jobs' visionary
    perseverance.

    bloggerblog
  • Reply 19 of 43
    rogifan_newrogifan_new Posts: 4,297member
    bloggerblog said:
    Well done, great move in the right direction! But thanks to Apple's old managers, it is stuck in the old style management, and companies like Google and Microsoft are quickly innovating modern working environments and attracting better talent. Just look how fast Microsoft has caught up with Apple. Apple professionals are praising the Surface Studio and crapping on the new MBP.
    How many of these so-called "Apple professionals" actually put an order in for a Surface Studio? Seems to me it's catered to a nice market of graphic designers. If you're not a graphic designer why would you want a Surface Studio?
  • Reply 20 of 43
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    sog35 said:
    FINALLY!!!

    This was what I was pushing for.

    Privacy is nice and dandy, but not if it stops innovation.

    Tim Cook is finally seeing the light.
    This has nothing to do with Apple's stance on their customers' privacy.  
    StrangeDays
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