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Former ByteDance Intern Accused of Sabotage Among Winners of Prestigious AI Award

Dec 13, 2024 - wired.com
Keyu Tian, a former ByteDance intern accused of professional misconduct, was awarded the Best Paper Award at the NeurIPS conference for his work on a paper titled “Visual Autoregressive Modeling: Scalable Image Generation via Next-Scale Prediction.” The paper, co-authored with colleagues from ByteDance and Peking University, introduces a new method for AI-generated image creation that is reportedly faster and more efficient. The award decision sparked controversy due to allegations against Tian, including sabotaging colleagues’ work and misusing company resources, which ByteDance claims led to significant financial losses. The situation has fueled discussions about the ethical standards of NeurIPS and the broader AI research community.

The NeurIPS committee emphasized that the award was based on the paper's scientific merit, not the authors' conduct. The controversy has been widely discussed online, with calls for reconsideration of the award due to Tian's alleged misconduct. ByteDance confirmed the intern's dismissal for disciplinary violations but disputed some media exaggerations. The incident underscores the competitive nature of AI research and the challenges of accessing limited computing resources, particularly in China, where US export controls restrict high-end semiconductor sales. Despite the controversy, Tian and his coauthors remain optimistic about their research's potential to reduce resource demands in AI-generated video.

Key takeaways:

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  • Keyu Tian, a former ByteDance intern accused of professional misconduct, won a prestigious AI research award for a paper on scalable image generation.
  • The NeurIPS Best Paper Award committee emphasized that the award was based on the scientific merit of the paper, not the author's personal conduct.
  • The controversy surrounding Tian's award has sparked discussions about ethical standards and the evaluation process in AI research conferences.
  • The incident highlights the challenges AI researchers face in accessing limited computing resources, particularly in China due to US export controls.
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