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A comment on Facebook open-sources a speech-recognition system and a machine learning library. Parent comment

Re:Facebook open-sources a speech-recognition system and a m... by beginningguava on Friday December 21, 2018 @06:14PM (#18737580)
In a world with less perverse incentives these people whose education was largely funded by tax payers would be working on actual valuable projects rather than optimizing how to get people to click more ads for a private corporation.
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Re:Facebook open-sources a speech-recognition system and a m... by losteric on Friday December 21, 2018 @10:50PM (#18738810)
I agree with the sentiment that ads are such a savage application, but...

* I'm confused by why you bring up tax-payer funded education... do you think these employees don't pay taxes?

* What is your definition of "valuable"?

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Re:Facebook open-sources a speech-recognition system and a m... by justapassenger on Friday December 21, 2018 @10:02PM (#18738662)
Ads are core part of how today’s world economy works, like it or not.
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Re:Facebook open-sources a speech-recognition system and a m... by AlexCoventry on Friday December 21, 2018 @11:49PM (#18738980)
What do you think would go awry, if we suddenly abandoned machine learning for advertising?
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Re:Facebook open-sources a speech-recognition system and a m... by justapassenger on Saturday December 22, 2018 @12:35AM (#18739128)
A lot of business would go bankrupt. And I’m not talking about adtech, but advertisers. There’s tons of them, from small mom and pop style to big companies that depend on ads to get customers. And no, they aren’t scams.

HN crowd doesn’t accept that, but most people here have no idea about how business works.

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Re:Facebook open-sources a speech-recognition system and a m... by AlexCoventry on Saturday December 22, 2018 @12:59AM (#18739200)
Has the cost of customer acquisition objectively dropped over the last twenty years? If so, where can I read about that? If not, why do you believe that?
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