Open sourcing AI research is important for accountability, reproducibility and driving progress in AI but, in reality, the vast majority of AI research papers are behind corporate lock and key. The industry has not evolved much since 2016 when 90% of research did not publish code along with their papers. We hope to see positive change in this regard.
Elsewhere in the report, we show that NeurIPS and ICLR both propose new ethical principles and expectations of researchers, but no mandatory code and data sharing. In this aspect, machine learning is behind leaders in life sciences, such as the Wellcome Trust or Nature. Example: “A condition of publication in a Nature Research journal is that authors are required to make materials, data, code, and associated protocols promptly available to readers without undue qualifications.”
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