I use to believe that the business model of Microsoft was just selling an overpriced Operating System and Microsoft Office to governments and businesses. I used to believe that the business model of Google was gathering data and selling accurate ads.
I was recently surprised to discover they have research subsidiaries called Microsoft Research and Google Deepmind
Microsoft Research employs more than 1,000 computer scientists, physicists, engineers, and mathematicians, including Turing Award winners, Fields Medal winners, MacArthur Fellows, and Dijkstra Prize winners.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Research
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_DeepMind
The founder of Deep Mind received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demis_Hassabis
Do they do actual research here or is this junk science?
They couldn’t possibly develop cutting edge technology if they weren’t doing any research.
Sure we can laugh about Windows and Office being cutting edge, but they were at one point, and that’s why they still make bank by getting it on 80% of all computers (I’m guessing, don’t hold me to that number)
It tends to be much more focused on bringing products to market, but of course they do. The transistor, the base unit of all of the microchips which make this conversation possible, came out of Bell Labs. And, as much as we might hate them for it, you have companies like Monsanto doing a lot of work on chemical engineering and genetics. Much of the work on AI (for good or slop) is being done in private sector labs now. Aeronautics research happens heavily in companies like Boeing and Airbus, though they are often working hand in hand with government labs (e.g. NASA, JPL, EASA).
Where Universities and Government really shine are areas like basic research and research which doesn’t have obvious commercial applications. Which is why support for those organizations is so critical. Those areas of research often have long term effects and can result in entirely new areas of knowledge, research and products.
It’s easy to think of large corporations as soulless organizations hell bent of accumulating wealth at the cost of anything else, because they are. But they are also surprisingly good at focusing wealth and effort to find new ways to do things cheaper, faster and more efficiently. Specifically because those things make money. Veritasium had a video on a good example of this recently.
Depends on the Corp, some do legit cutting edge work, some really don’t do much actual research.
In France most software companies only pretend to do R&D in order to get lower taxes on some salaries. But it’s never research.
Yes, many corporations do both internal research and development as well as research as a service. This obviously seems to include Microsoft and Google.
I wouldn’t says it’s junk science, whole cloth. But it is focused on making a profit. Which does differentiate it some with say university research.
Corporations don’t do any research ever.
Employees of corporations do research and development at the behest of millionaires and billionaires who exploit them.
The corporation is simply the legal system that exists to allow this exploitation.
It should also be said that a corporation that conducts its own research into the I’ll effects of its products and services should never be trusted unless that specific data is validated by a trustworthy and independent 3rd party. Governments don’t count.
Corporations cannot research because they are entirely human-made, abstract things.
Humans can research.
