Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by sillysaurusx 1823 days ago
I'd be no scientist if I didn't update my priors.

I retract my claims. You're right. Thanks for calling me out.

I will say that it's... a gargantuan effort to do the things that you're proposing. But as someone who did them you're right, you can. (BigGAN-Deep took a year to track down the bug https://github.com/google/compare_gan/issues/54)

BigGAN-Deep is a decent example of the thing I was really worried about: replication. I thought it'd be really easy to "just implement the paper." But no one had. Mooch did, but not at the same scale as the DeepMind release.

Maybe you're right about me, too. You're convincing me that I'm not a very good ML programmer. It's probably best to bow out on whatever high notes I've achieved.

Karras' work is fantastic. I don't know why this preview of things to come was where I chose to do this. Thank you, nVidia group, for working so hard.
1 comments
godelski 1823 days ago
Hey man, I respect that. I also understand your frustration. Reproduction is difficult. I'm going through it right now with a paper that has no code attached. You bet I'm pulling out my hair. I just think taking your frustration out on this paper is not the right vector. Please continue to call out papers that aren't reproducible. Please continue to push forward higher standards. But also recognize where we are and where we've come from. And most importantly, pick your battles. The passion is right, and I agree with the spirit of what you wrote, just not the direction.

And I'm not trying to say you suck. But you said you've been studying the subject for only 2 years. So I am going to check you. It's easy to grow an ego, but it often isn't useful. Sucking at something is the first step to being somewhat good at something. And you're clearly past the step of "sucking" but not to the step of "wizard." I don't know where you are between there tbh. But I do understand the frustration haha. That is normal.

Side note: usually it is good practice to note that you edited comments. It was rather confusing to look back and see something different.

link