Corporate Disruption in the Science of Machine Learning
It addresses the impact of commercialization on ML researchers, but is incremental as it builds on existing social science theories.
This study examined how corporate interest affects machine learning researchers' practices and perceptions, finding that researchers navigate career choices and collaborations differently in a commercialized environment.
This MSc dissertation considers the effects of the current corporate interest on researchers in the field of machine learning. Situated within the field's cyclical history of academic, public and corporate interest, this dissertation investigates how current researchers view recent developments and negotiate their own research practices within an environment of increased commercial interest and funding. The original research consists of in-depth interviews with 12 machine learning researchers working in both academia and industry. Building on theory from science, technology and society studies, this dissertation problematizes the traditional narratives of the neoliberalization of academic research by allowing the researchers themselves to discuss how their career choices, working environments and interactions with others in the field have been affected by the reinvigorated corporate interest of recent years.