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A comment on Co-founder of Neuralink leaves the company. Parent comment

Re:Co-founder of Neuralink leaves the company by p1esk on Monday May 03, 2021 @04:26AM (#27022773)
Nope. The best minds work on whatever they're interested in (this includes making better ads):

https://ai.facebook.com/research

https://research.google/research-areas/

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Re:Co-founder of Neuralink leaves the company by ramraj07 on Monday May 03, 2021 @05:09AM (#27022980)
That’s definitely not true. The smartest (clearly not the best if you take conscience into account) minds of today work either in ad farms or as money movers. You can sugarcoat it however you want but if you work in google or Facebook you definitely are just farming ads but with extra steps.
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Re:Co-founder of Neuralink leaves the company by p1esk on Monday May 03, 2021 @06:34AM (#27023427)
Hinton and Lecun are two of the smartest people working at Google/FB, and they don't work in ad farms or as money movers.
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Re:Co-founder of Neuralink leaves the company by 8fGTBjZxBcHq on Monday May 03, 2021 @08:15AM (#27024096)
Not directly but their work needs to benefit an ad company to be allowed to continue.

Or else it exists in some intersection of corporate benevolence and the work not actively harming the ad company. Which is just not an arrangement I trust sorry.

Plus I mean that's two people. How many people work at google and fb and how many who do get to decide they're going to do something more important than ads?

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Re:Co-founder of Neuralink leaves the company by p1esk on Monday May 03, 2021 @02:11PM (#27028645)
how many who do get to decide

We are talking about "best minds of our generation". That means dozens.

But even a regular good engineer/researcher can probably find a place where they can work on something they're interested in. I did.

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Re:Co-founder of Neuralink leaves the company by DrAwdeOccarim on Monday May 03, 2021 @05:40AM (#27023154)
Maybe in tech, but not in bio.
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Re:Co-founder of Neuralink leaves the company by PatentlyDC123 on Monday May 03, 2021 @11:39AM (#27026457)
Or nearly any other field, e.g., mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemistry/chemical engineering, nearly any of the sciences involved in the medical field (from pharmacology to psychology to name a few). Even "softer" fields like law and literature have present day geniuses pioneering new ground.

I understand that HackerNews is tech centered, but some times when I read "the best minds of my generation are doing X" I wonder if the commenter can see the flashes of brilliance shining beyond their field or what they know as "tech."

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Re:Co-founder of Neuralink leaves the company by DrAwdeOccarim on Monday May 03, 2021 @06:44PM (#27031839)
Totally agree. I'm surprised I was downvoted for my comment?
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Re:Co-founder of Neuralink leaves the company by Emma_Goldman on Monday May 03, 2021 @05:15AM (#27023023)
I just flicked through a few job ads on the career page of Google Research. All of them describe fundamental research oriented towards improving the commercial services of Google. It is very far from pursuing whatever one is interested in.
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Re:Co-founder of Neuralink leaves the company by p1esk on Monday May 03, 2021 @07:03AM (#27023591)
If you are one of the smartest people on the planet, you can work on whatever you're interested in. You can, if you want to, work on fundamental research at Google without any direct connections to commercial services of Google. Just look at their publications.
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