¯\_(ツ)_/¯
1,705 karma · joined June 6, 2017
Ranking 1 to 3 - 1 being the best - 3 the bare minimum for publication.
3. Citations only
2. Citations + full disclosure of data.
1. Citations + full disclosure of data + replicated
Been used since the 90s.
1. NonProgrammers will be able to create superficially working programs for some unmet need. Good if that need does not have a large enough market to attract investment. Bad if that superficially working program exposes them to security risks or bugs that can lose them money.
2. We see a lot more BS software - Social media, Scam and Advertising. This will be due to lowering the barriers of entry since expensive competent people will not have to be involved. Expensive competent people generally have better things to do with their time.
3. New programming fad - Spec-Driven Development (SDD). IMO that will be a mixed bag. Imagine creating a spec, feeding it to Claude code one day, making a small tweak (or possibly no tweak) some n days later and getting an entirely different code in return. We will spend the next 10 years developing new strategies for just about every thing we do without really doing it much better.
4. Running our code will become more expensive and software ownership will decrease. My friend handles an extremely large corporate account for MS. Before Office 365 they did 5 million a year with MS. A couple of years after adopting Office 365 $25 million a year. AI providers will definitely do more rent seeking by convincing people that they need their service to compete, locking them in, increasing the rent.
Isn't the entire Polymarket concept rife with ways to abuse the system? If I have insider knowledge I get shills to create a market for that knowledge - then make an extreme bet at the last moment. Seems sort of like betting the 49ers will not win the Super Bowl because you know that Purdy's kneecaps are about to be busted. Or large options trades the day before the Senate votes on Healthcare bills.
I am certain that that no system is perfect. My belief is that the Closed Access publishers have had free reign for so long that the largest ones abuse the system and competitive models are useful to restore some balance. The model also restricts access to information.
I would argue that one downside to Open Access is that incentives volume over quality (as others have said) but I would judge that on a per publisher basis just as I would any publisher. Closed Access models might also provide publication in areas of research that don't get tons of attention and research money.
I would also argue that there are other problems within research such as lack of reproducible results in many papers that is a far more pressing issue. Just my 2 cents. Thank you for the honest discussion.
The garbage thing is really interesting. I'm going to propose another reason for garbage is Academia's reliance on publication as the primary means for giving promotions and judging peoples work. This leads to all kinds of disfunction.
Was it Nobel Prize Winner Peter Higgs that said his University wanted to fire him because he didn't publish frequently enough?
If researchers cannot pay the APC then PLoS often reduces the fee. Also - half of that grant money is used by the Institution as administrative overhead. An part of that overhead is paying Elsevier for journal access. If you want to decrease the cost of research that may be a better place to start.
I agree that volume often tends to result in garbage but the review is supposed to lessen that. Again that garbage did get funded some how.
I am not pushing PLoS - they are simply a publisher I am familiar with that uses this model.
Elsevier makes over $3 billion dollars with the closed publication model. They force institutions to pay for bundles of journals they do not want. The Institutions often do not supply access to the general public despite the papers being produced with public money (and despite many of the Institutions being funded by public money).
Paying the cost upfront from the grant increases the availability to the public.
The thing I liked most is that when my clients would ask me to do things - I would often propose things more reliable and less time to implement solutions. They would then opt for the less optimal thing sometimes for good reasons. If I was an exempt employee that would have meant me spending my personal time on the extra work to meet deadlines. The contractor me would bill them for the hours:)
Now if you want to see what a really "caring boss" is like watch this video of former employees of Musk. The real interesting thing is some of them seem to like the humiliation, lack of boundaries and over work. Similar to what groups of soldiers feel after serving in a war together and returning with PTSD. Hope the money was worth it. Personally I would avoid it but to each his own.
When I was 18 the legal drinking age had just been reduced to 18. That only lasted a couple of years. I don't think I'd vote for lowering it to that age again actually.
It really isn't a bad thing for kids to be told they can't do something occasionally. It kind of helps prepare them for being an adult where it happens all the time.