The whole idea of hording ideas seems so wrong to me... I'm never going to run out of good ideas. But maybe he's right about the academic stuff. And it would kinda suck if someone published my research.
Sam's take on it is "If they really do beat you to it, they deserve it." He's probably right... but... Urgh.
My options:
- Keep doing my video blog anyway
- Only talk about what I'm reading about and background stuff. Self-censor the meaty details
- Hold some / all posts until I've published the work (or at least, some work so others can cite me)
- Abandon the video blog entirely
Also, apparently even if other academics wanted to cite the work I'm doing, they'll have a hard time with it until I publish my work in a journal. Whats with academia completely failing to discover the humble URL? Cool URLs don't change and the URL was invented exactly for the purpose of interrelated papers.
Sigh.
Academics hoard ideas because they want to get credit for them. This makes sense for academics; they trade on reputation. More reputation means more research grants and invitations to fancy conferences.
ReplyDeleteBut it doesn't make sense for _ideas_. If you hoard ideas, nobody thinks about them, so nobody can try them out or improve them.
I think there are two questions here:
1. Do you want to open source the groundwork for your AI?
2. Is open sourcing your work compatible with getting a PhD?
Looking at 1, if you want to open source the groundwork, then making these videos is a great idea because it documents your thinking as well as the issues and problems you're tackling. These videos are a really valuable resource for future AI researchers (or historians trying to figure out where it all went wrong).
And 2a) If you publish the videos *now*, you have the benefit of instant feedback from the community, which can help shape your thinking, guide you in the right direction and help you solve problems.
2b) But if you publish them *now*, someone else could steal your ideas. You may have a difficult time defending your PhD by saying you published everything on YouTube first.
I think open sourcing ideas is generally incompatible with doing a PhD. I also think 2a outweighs 2b; I think making the videos and sharing them outweighs the risk of someone stealing your ideas.
I know this, because the other day you said, "All I really want from the world right now is enough dollars to get by, and people to talk to about my AI research."
I say, do it. Put yourself out there. Keep thinking critically about your ideas and how to explain them to a smart audience. Make a good record of how you developed strong AI. Be open source. If somebody else gets there first, then they deserve it. And if you're on the right track, you'll get there first.
Ha. That was actually a Jaie quote. I'll tell you what I told you before.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of imaginary problems we conjure up because they're scary: Schneier calls them "movie plots". A sneaky academic sneaking your information away and sneaking you out of your PhD is an awesome story and very evocative, but it's a poor reality.
Here's a real problem: nobody knows what you're doing.
Here's another real problem: nobody cares about what you're doing.
Those two problems are far more important and far more substantial than your academic heist, just less interesting. You're putting plane crash above heart disease here.
Lastly, ask yourself what you're actually doing this for. It's your decision, so it should be made based on your beliefs. Why did you start your PhD? What is your goal? What decision is going to most effectively move you toward that goal? That's your answer, even if it's uncomfortable.
I agree with Sam. You had a vision for your research. Don't start compromising *now*, you're only one month in!
ReplyDeleteTalk, share, write. Hoarding gets you nowhere. If someone steals your ideas and doesn't reference you, that's plagiarism. If they bounce off you subconsciously and benefit, that's a complement and a suggestion to you that you should get more in stone.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, if it is documented in a recorded format that has a time stamp (a blog counts, but a personal conversation doesn't), that's your IP.
As said supervisor I thought I'd weigh in to the discussion...
ReplyDeleteFirst, I'd like to make clear what we're talking about. I *want* Joseph to publish his research. I *want* his research to be disseminated widely and have impact. I would like that to happen in a way that gets him credit for his ideas. If that means being careful about how those ideas are disseminated, then lets be careful.
Second, this 'stealing of ideas' is not a 'movie plot'. It has happened to me (on a small scale) and to a few other academics I've talked to about this. There is no malice involved on the part of the other academic. If they're looking for the best way to solve the same problem you're working on, and you give them an incomplete idea that they like, then they have two options at that point:
- Stop and wait for you to get things done (and you're probably going to be slower than them because you're still learning about this whole research thing), or
- Go ahead and use your idea.
If they go ahead and use your idea it would be nice of them to cite you, but a) people don't cite other people's ideas, they only cite other people's results (they'll sometimes give you an acknowledgement for an idea (not a citation), but acknowledgements don't count for much), and b) it is hard to cite blogs as the URLs change (academia is thinking long term here - if it isn't archived in a bunch of well-known places around the world, it is often not cited) and it just isn't done much.
Saying "it's your IP" because it is on a blog is naive. You might own the copyright on the blog, but there is no way to force someone to cite you. (Actually this is also true if you publish in minor conferences.)
One other issue - I'm also a researcher in this area. It is usual for research students to work together with their advisors - and ideas come from both sides. (If I didn't have anything to offer, why would anyone pick me to advise them?) What happens when Joseph and I discuss an idea, I make significant input, he puts it on his blog and it gets used by another researcher? I don't think some kind of firewall between me and Joseph is a great idea.
Finally, I'm interested in what people see as the advantages of this blog. I see the possible advantages as:
- Joseph puts his thoughts in order by explaining them to other people. Even if noone ever looks at the blog then this is good. In fact, one academic I knew in the US Randy Pausch had a stuffed toy in his lab that students could explain their tricky problems too - it solved a surprising number of them.
- Joseph gets feedback by other academics/phd students about the non-research issues of doing a PhD. I think this is a great part of the blog, and I think he should blog about these issues. (and read PhD Comics)
- Joseph gets technical feedback from other academics/phd students about implementation details. This is the sort of thing where you normally chat to the person sitting next to you..., "I need a data-structure that does X". I am starting to worry about sharing too much publicly at this point - sometimes these data structures turn out to be important - but I can see the that benefits could well outweigh the risks in this case.
- Joseph gets technical feedback from other academics/phd students in his area about the research. I just don't see this happening, unless he's waaay off track. Other PhD students will be warned off posting their ideas in exactly the same way I'm warning Joseph. (It is standard for PhD students to be warned away from discussing upcoming research when they attend their first conference.)
- Joseph gets technical feedback from random members of the public in his area of research. Forgive me if I'm sceptical. I just don't think he will get many important insights this way. The insights he might get this way are more from him putting his thoughts in order to explain it to the other person than because the other person understood the problem well and came up with the solution.
Rather than making this a big fight, I'd rather be constructive and look for compromises that can keep everyone happy. Here are some thoughts:
- Joseph makes his video blogs, but doesn't make them public until after an academic publication is accepted. When he does make them public he includes the reference to the publication so that people know what to cite.
- There could also be some thought about the concepts of 'public' and 'private' here. If his blog were accessible within CSE, then that wouldn't worry me nearly as much. If his blog were only accessible to his friends then that wouldn't worry me nearly as much.
This isn't a trivial issue. I think it would be great if the world were different and Joseph could do his blog and not worry. The world is what it is though, so how do we deal with that?
We see such issues arise all the time in the history of scientific research. What is the chance that another person somewhere in the world will not be thinking similar thoughts to you at this instant? I am keenly watching all of your videos / feed and at least by your effort to express your thoughts you are showing a logical progression of ideas and by time stamping them on the internet no one can really take the credit away from you. It will be a sad day when ideas are locked away because you are afraid of someone else taking them. Anyway love your feed keep it up
ReplyDelete