Re:Microsoft Researcher John Langford Exits. AI Frontiers Gr...
by Nevermark on Saturday November 07, 2026 @07:11PM
(#50409302)
I think the dichotomy of open-research vs. commercially-driven innovation might be easier to coordinate, with three stages, not two:
1. Open research: Great creative freedom, with great resource constraints. Lots of ideas, lots of things tried, at insignificant cost relative to commercial work.
2. Results filtering and vetting: Opportunistic selection of apparently successful work from stage 1, for tentative testing at increasing scale. The best ideas end up with moderate budgets that verify benefits, and rework for compatibility, before any handoff to stage 3.
3. Commercial efforts aimed strictly at improving quality and economics of current revenue sources.
Mediating between just #1 and #2 involves too much dissonance over complementary but incompatible values. #3 can be a relatively small group, but keeps #1 and #2 from butting heads and facilitates them both.
By significantly lowing the uncertainty, risk and numbers of #1 efforts before consideration from #3.
1. Open research: Great creative freedom, with great resource constraints. Lots of ideas, lots of things tried, at insignificant cost relative to commercial work.
2. Results filtering and vetting: Opportunistic selection of apparently successful work from stage 1, for tentative testing at increasing scale. The best ideas end up with moderate budgets that verify benefits, and rework for compatibility, before any handoff to stage 3.
3. Commercial efforts aimed strictly at improving quality and economics of current revenue sources.
Mediating between just #1 and #2 involves too much dissonance over complementary but incompatible values. #3 can be a relatively small group, but keeps #1 and #2 from butting heads and facilitates them both.
By significantly lowing the uncertainty, risk and numbers of #1 efforts before consideration from #3.