Comment by jgilias

3 hours ago

_why_ have people started to call companies “labs”?!

Because making new AI models is a research activity, so the group within Nvidia (or other companies) that does that activity is called a research lab, or just "lab" for short. I don't think anyone is saying that all of Nvidia is a lab (that's just shorthand I guess).

  • What amuses me is that “lab” is shorthand for “laboratory” and virtually no computer research happens inside a room people would typically call a lab.

    It’s a little like the trend of calling developers “engineers”. There’s no actual engineering in the traditional sense but I’m sure developers think it sounds cool to call themselves that.

    • If you can't tell the difference between computer science and software engineering, then at least one of those worlds contains none of your feet.

Because it sounds cool/sciency.

Just like everything AI is a "model". It's actually not, but it sounds cool/sciency.