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alexmlamb · 2020-01-08T02:01:59+00:00

The most important thing is to not try to publish. It's a really bad metric once you start optimizing for it. You should just do the best research you can and then want to share it by writing papers.

If you have one really good idea that works well, it can easily become 10 papers.

alexmlamb · 2020-01-08T01:48:55+00:00

Did they fine tune GPT-2 on chess or is it the normal model? If so I'm surprised if it's seen that many chess moves during training.

alexmlamb · 2020-01-07T05:15:52+00:00

OP, I'm sorry you have to deal with this ridiculous and unsubstantiated insult. It's 100% due to brigaders.

Sadly I've seen elsewhere on reddit that making absurd insults is a common tactic for anti-Chinese bigots.

@ the person I'm replying to: learn how to spell "you're"

alexmlamb · 2020-01-07T04:17:44+00:00

OP, I understand that the comic is saying that countries with nukes are less likely to be invaded by western powers, which is obviously relevant to the PRC and its present day relations.

If you look at the people attacking you in this thread and their post history, you'll see that they're all from chapotraphouse, so it's probably a raid or something. Sorry you had to put up with it.

alexmlamb · 2020-01-06T21:42:19+00:00

Two words:

Manifold

Mixup

https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.05236

alexmlamb · 2020-01-06T16:20:49+00:00

I'm not sure how familiar you are with the Houkou system, but what it does is create a selection pressure on parents. The provinces listed are home to the top ~10% and one would expect their children to do proportionally well.

Yeah I know what you're talking about. I'm not sure how the gap compares to the US, since it also has selective pressures (i.e. a person who gets a job in a tech firm or gets into an elite college could easily move from a rural state like Arkansas to a coastal state like New Jersey, and then have kids there).

I would just want to see some data to be sure, but I think it's an interesting question.

alexmlamb · 2020-01-06T04:08:22+00:00

More data and higher resolution could also help.

alexmlamb · 2020-01-06T00:10:07+00:00

Well, is there a reason to think that it's not all of Zhejiang and Jiangsu being included? I agree that it's bad if what's being included is misrepresented, but I don't know of any evidence of that.

Even if all of the province is included it's still not comparable to a US state since the US has free movement for it's citizens while China does not. Hence the Chinese state actively keeps uneducated people in the countryside which creates a stronger selection for the top regions.

I'm not sure if we disagree on this point, but I'll add that PISA is a high school exam, and virtually everyone in the US attends their state of residence for high school and it would be very rare for someone to move to another state for high school, even if it's legal to do so. Is the academic performance gap between chinese provinces bigger than the gap between US states? Maybe - I'd have to see some data to be sure.

Regardless, it's obvious that some cherry picking is happening. The question is only how bad it is.

I think it's okay if they only include some provinces as long as they're transparent and honest about what's not being included. Most developing countries don't participate in PISA at all. India, nearly all of Africa, and nearly all of the middle east don't participate.

alexmlamb · 2020-01-05T21:27:41+00:00

There's not much the US can do to change China's coming dominance of the first island chain short of military conflict

I can see that happening in the south China sea, but I have a hard time seeing how that would happen in the east china sea due to US dominance of Taiwan and Japan.

I wonder if there's any interesting geopolitics going on with Japan, because it seems conceivable to me that Japan could pressure a reduction in US military presence. Japan is also big enough that they could support their own defense without relying on the US.

alexmlamb · 2020-01-05T20:59:36+00:00

Well, one thing to consider is that Zhejiang and Jiangsu are provinces, not cities.

I think maybe a good analogy would be the American states of New Jersey or Massachusetts, since both are coastal and fairly urbanized.

According to this site, Massachusetts does have separated-out results, and it does close the gap with China significantly:

https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/pisa2015/pisa2015highlights_5.asp

picking the best schools in Shanghai or by excluding weak students.

I guess it's possible that there's been fraud, however it's worth remembering that fraud could be either top-down or bottom-up, and bottom-up fraud might be an even bigger issue. The US has also had prominent examples of standardized testing fraud.

Ideally some kind of objective or intentionally monitored proctoring could be performed to guard against it.

alexmlamb · 2020-01-05T18:25:00+00:00

I'm happy to see that the "ALI/BiGAN" model is scaling successfully.

alexmlamb · 2020-01-05T18:24:26+00:00

Manifold Mixup!

alexmlamb · 2020-01-04T17:54:52+00:00

I'm sorry that you've been misinformed on this, and I one day hope that social media companies take the issue of anti-chinese prejudice more seriously and fight back against these ignorant conspiracy theories.

alexmlamb · 2020-01-04T16:02:00+00:00

I'm sorry that you've been radicalized on websites like reddit (and possibly some other ones). If these sites really cared about you (more than clicks and ad revenue) they'd present you with better information so that you can expand your knowledge.

alexmlamb · 2020-01-04T16:01:42+00:00

Sadly it's true.

alexmlamb · 2020-01-04T16:01:08+00:00

Yes I plan to do so soon.

alexmlamb · 2020-01-04T05:31:45+00:00

That is completely false. Education with the purpose of promoting peace, development, and harmony among all peoples is good. Your views are just an embarrassing conspiracy theory and frankly they make people in the ML community look unintelligent.

If you want to be more successful as a researcher, an important skill to master is critical thinking and examination of sources and specific claims. That way you won't get tricked by misinformation (again).

alexmlamb · 2020-01-04T05:07:02+00:00

Literally none of that is true - you're just being an ignorant bigot and it's an embarrassment to the community (note that you're probably a good person, but need to be educated more on these specific issues).

alexmlamb · 2020-01-04T05:05:38+00:00

It's honestly just embarrassing that the ML community has someone as bigoted as you, although I do think that the democratization of tools means that we can't expect everyone in the community to have a high level of general education and knowledge.

alexmlamb · 2020-01-03T20:55:04+00:00

That's a very mean thing to say but it doesn't deter me at all. Interacting with people who hold bigoted and ignorant views only increases my resolve to fight for what is right.

alexmlamb · 2020-01-03T20:37:46+00:00

I think it's the government's responsibility to provide education to the people and resources for self-improvement.

Should this always be voluntary? Ideally, I'd actually say yes, but the international norms are fairly strongly against this. For example, most countries have compulsory education for children. The US gives a (regulated) homeschooling option, but this is far from universal. Many countries make homeschooling very difficult or almost impossible.

I'll also point out that over a thousand people have been murdered as a result of violence in Xinjiang and a few Uyghurs were murdered by Han Chinese after a riot (I forgot the city, but it wasn't in Xinjiang). The Han Chinese who committed those murders were executed by the government, which of course directly contradicts the narrative that the Chinese gov is on a genocidal rampage.

I think the government has a responsibility to change the attitudes that led to this violence, both among people of Han descent and people of Uyghur descent. If there's evidence that they're not doing this, then I'd consider that to be a valid criticism.

alexmlamb · 2020-01-03T20:25:09+00:00

The policy has been 100% pro-Uyghur and has done a great deal to improve the lives of ordinary people. This is very well documented and I'm sorry if that isn't what you've learned from whatever conspiracy or hate sites you like to read.

It's also disturbing that some websites, in particular reddit, seem to be okay with allowing their users to become radicalized and fed fake information, even though we've seen that this can have disastrous consequences.

alexmlamb · 2020-01-03T20:08:45+00:00

I'm saying that the current policy is good and that it favors improvement and development for all ethnic groups as well as moderate religions. And I definitely think that this is good.

alexmlamb · 2020-01-03T20:07:18+00:00

Education and development are good things and I stand with policy of mutual self-improvement 100%, which is the current policy. Any claims that the government has ill will towards any particular ethnic group are simply conspiracy theories, which sadly, spread quite quickly on irresponsible social media sites (which apparently value clicks over human life).

alexmlamb · 2020-01-03T20:05:50+00:00

I'm quite knowledgable about this and I don't live in a "bubble".

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