This. Google wants their cake + to eat it to by hiring the best in class Ph.D's with the allure of doing "academic research" but paid a big-tech salary.

Turns out it's mostly PR and buying yourself credibility at this point.

Exactly. This isn't science. Sometmies science finds uncomfortable results, and if it's not truthful about them, then it's not science.

For almost any paper I read, before I pick it up, I know there were statistically significant findings. Those results were not predefined. Instead they are part of the academic review process that filters out null results. That same process (depending on the field) also rewards novelty or all sorts of other things. It's very much a human process.

> When the result is predefined it's not research anymore, it's advertisement. Still calling it “research” is fraud.

Like, when you see someone who's an amazing software engineer with a great salary, and you know they spend a lot of time doing research. Then you suppose the research must be paying off. Over time, survival tends to equal truth.