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Facebook Runs On AI - But 70% of Its Engineers Who Use AI Aren't Experts (wsj.com)

Posted by msmash on from the things-to-ponder dept.

An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a WSJ report: AI algorithms are inherently black boxes whose workings can be next to impossible to understand -- even by many Facebook engineers. "If you look at all the engineers at Facebook, more than one in four are users of our AI platform," says Mr. Candela. "But more than 70% [of those] aren't experts." How so many Facebook engineers can use its AI algorithms without necessarily knowing how to build them, Mr. Joaquin Candela, Facebook's head of applied machine learning says, is that the system is "a very modular layered cake where you can plug in at any level you want." He adds, "The power of this is just hard to describe." Pieces of that platform are performing all kinds of "domain-specific" tasks across Facebook's properties, from translation to speech recognition.

13 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. It's called "specialization" by CajunArson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You might as well say that Facebook's AI runs on electricity and (generously) 99% of Facebook's engineers aren't experts in electricity generation and distribution either.

    --
    AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
    1. Re:It's called "specialization" by plague911 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Agreed, this is nonsense. When I was programming I used compilers, I sure as heck was not a compiler expert. At best I could be an expert in using compilers and that would be fine.

      Even with teams as large as they are now in common environments, you can afford to have one expert at compilers creating your optimum build packages

      It should even be uncommon to have the expert utilizing the technology they are an expert at building. Those roles are often separated out for good reason.

    2. Re:It's called "specialization" by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 3, Insightful
      They probably drive cars to work every day, too.

      And I'll bet not a one of them is an expert car designer. Or even capable of designing a basic internal combustion engine....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
  2. Experts by Headw1nd · · Score: 4, Interesting
    What does that even mean? What percentage in any field can be called experts? Also, where would you find a full staff of "AI experts"?

    Are there answers to these questions behind the paywall? I'm guessing no.

  3. libc by foxx1337 · · Score: 2

    Isn't this as if I were using libc or, god forbid, libc++, boost even, while not being an "expert" there? I'm pretty certain it would take me an obscene amount of effort to even replicate some of the stuff in boost, for example.

    Isn't this all that modern development has been trying to achieve since forever?

  4. Congrats by erapert · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So this is a triumph for the engineers that put that stuff together: it can be used by non-experts to meaningful effect.

    1. Re:Congrats by alvinrod · · Score: 2

      Yeah, but by next month we'll be hearing about how it was Facebook AI that was actually responsible for getting Trump elected. So either it isn't very intelligent, or it's incredibly intelligent but possibly evil.

  5. Creating AI Models is Easy by Herkum01 · · Score: 2

    It is prepping the data that is hard. The Machine Learning Algorithms have been established for a long time. The big limiters on it have been processing power and decent data sets.

  6. Security by avandesande · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How many developers understand encryption algorithms that they use for security... this is the point of libraries?

    --
    love is just extroverted narcissism
    1. Re:Security by QuietLagoon · · Score: 2, Informative

      How many developers understand encryption algorithms that they use for security... this is the point of libraries?

      Not enough developers understand encryption algorithms (and it shows), and libraries don't help because they still allow the misuse of encryption.

  7. I drive a car... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    but I'm not a fucking mechanic.

  8. It doesn't work for me... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 2

    ... some as simple as the fact that i like to see my newsfeed with Recent Posts first, instead of what Facebook thinks I want to see first, is beyond the capability of the Facebook AI. Each time I go to Facebook,, I have to set the option to show Recent Posts first. If the Facebook AI can't get that right, what can it get right?

  9. Normal, expected, and a problem by alispguru · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The real problem with modern, "deep learning" AI is that usually not even the experts can tell you how such systems work.

    The most they can tell you is:

    * The model makes the choices we labeled on our training data set
    * We add stuff to the training set as it makes detected mistakes

    The weights in the neural network after training become an opaque fuzzy partition of the training set.

    Does this inspire confidence in you? Me neither.

    --

    To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.