How Tech Giants Use Money, Access To Steer Academic Research

Tech giants including Google and Facebook parent Meta have dramatically ramped up charitable giving to university campuses over the past several years -- giving them influence over academics studying such critical topics as artificial intelligence, social media and disinformation. From a report: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg alone has donated money to more than 100 university campuses, either through Meta or his personal philanthropy arm, according to new research by the Tech Transparency Project, a nonprofit watchdog group studying the technology industry. Other firms are helping fund academic centers, doling out grants to professors and sitting on advisory boards reserved for donors, researchers told The Post.

Silicon Valley's influence is most apparent among computer science professors at such top-tier schools as Berkeley, University of Toronto, Stanford and MIT. According to a 2021 paper by University of Toronto and Harvard researchers, most tenure-track professors in computer science at those schools whose funding sources could be determined had taken money from the technology industry, including nearly 6 of 10 scholars of AI. The proportion rose further in certain controversial subjects, the study found. Of 33 professors whose funding could be traced who wrote on AI ethics for the top journals Nature and Science, for example, all but one had taken grant money from the tech giants or had worked as their employees or contractors.

Do not you worry ...

[CalgaryD]

... just follow the science.

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[taustin]

If you can find any.

Good luck with that.

Great

[drrilll]

Academics steered towards useful research. Students want to do something impactful. These companies are giving them the chance.

Re:

[CalgaryD]

That would be true, if there was less politics everywhere. However, now everything is so politicized that nobody believes any good intentions. And... probably, for a good reason.

Do you really believe that Soros gives money without any agenda? What about Zuckerberg?

Re:Great

[taustin]

So, just like government grants?

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[drrilll]

If you don't believe in the source of the money, say no.

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[alvinrod]

I don't care what intentions has when someone else gives their money. It's their money and they can attach their own strings. No one is forced to accept the money or the strings. I do have more issues with what my tax dollars are spent on, however.

]Number one donors: Koch [Re:Great

[XXongo]

Do you really believe that Soros gives money without any agenda? What about Zuckerberg?

What this article somehow neglect to mention is that the largest donations to universities by billionaires are from the Koch Brothers [exposedbycmd.org] (now down to one Koch Brother, Charles)
https://publicintegrity.org/po... [publicintegrity.org]
https://www.sourcewatch.org/in... [sourcewatch.org]

They have the explicitly stated goal of trying to inculcate the next generation with their conservative philosophy, where in their case the only part of "conservative" they're particularly interested in is being in favor of lower taxes on corporations and fewer regulat

Re:

[radarskiy]

Is it useful research, or is it product development?

So what's new?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Google donating Chromebooks to rural students. [theverge.com] - 2020
Microsoft donates Windows devices [statescoop.com] - 2014
Apple donates Apple II computers to schools [timeline.com] - 1982

Computer companies have always understood that the best way to indoctrinate future users into using their products is to strategically place them at state-sanctioned places of indoctrination. That's why all of them donate stuff, and that's why almost all software vendors have discounted or free versions of their software for students and teachers.

This is no different. They're just using a different approach to induce a long-term bias in the education system.

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[radarskiy]

Why does it have to be a new problem to be a problem?

Corporate money in academia is nothing new

[davidwr]

Big companies funded research at universities before I was born and probably before anyone alive today was born.

Why doesn't NSF or the university pay then?

[m00sh]

Why do professors have to even ask industry for money? Why doesn't NSF or the university themselves support the research? The question is sort of rhetorical but you know the answers.

While the summary implies they are buying influence (I can't read the paywalled article), I think that money actually buys graduate students (mostly foreign). It is cheap way to get research done (graduate student stipends are pittance compared to silicon valley salaries) and also creates a good pool to hire from after they graduate when they have already worked on topics that the industry is interested in. The professor also benefits since they have a larger army of graduate students and more graduate students means more papers and more influence.

Re:Why doesn't NSF or the university pay then?

[alvinrod]

The money has to come from somewhere. Why should professors have an open tap on the public fund for their research? Little of the tuition students pay goes towards research anyway, but why should they foot the bill either? Frankly, having to find someone else who actually believes in your ideas enough to fund them isn't any worse as a model. At least it means that individual patrons or companies have to put their own money on the line.

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[wyHunter]

A congruent but unrelate corollary to this is "Why does big pharma fund the FDA, the medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency in UK, and the European Medicines Agency in the EU?" The EMA is ~89%, in the UK 75% for the MHPRA, and somewhat less for the FDA.

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[XXongo]

Why do professors have to even ask industry for money? Why doesn't NSF or the university themselves support the research? The question is sort of rhetorical but you know the answers. While the summary implies they are buying influence (I can't read the paywalled article),

It's pretty clear that this is why Charles Koch is continuing to donate hundreds of millions to universities, to buy influence for his conservative and libertarian causes.

If you can get through the paywall: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0... [nytimes.com]

Study

[richardwhite333]

The impact on academic research is becoming more noticeable. Donations and grants create doubts about the independence of research. It's getting difficult, I found an annotated bibliography writing service myself, I use https://edubirdie.com/annotated-bibliography-writing-service [edubirdie.com] for help. There's nothing to talk about. It is important to ensure transparency of interests.