Tech Giant AI Researchers Boycott Nature 'Machine Intelligence' Journal

NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 16: Director of Facebook AI Research Yann LeCun attends the 2016 Wired Business Conference on June 16, 2016 in New York City. Renowned artificial intelligence (AI) experts from almost all of the tech giants are planning to boycott a new journal from Nature Publishing Group, which is widely regarded as one of the most influential science publishers in the world. Nature's new Machine Intelligence Journal is due to be published for the first time in January 2019. Nature said it will cover the "best research from across the field of artificial intelligence" but it will also be a closed access journal, and this has angered many in the AI community who want to see AI research openly available to everyone. Over 2,000 people -- including more than 75 from Google, 25 from Microsoft, 23 from DeepMind, 16 from Facebook, and 11 from Amazon -- have pledged to "not submit to, review, or edit for this new journal".