Author here. I work on AI tools for ML researchers, and have had this essay rattling around in me for a while (since I completed my PhD last year, actually).
Seeing OpenAI's publication on "Working with academic communities to build scientific understanding" motivated me to finally post it.
I expect we’ll continue getting faster at producing results than at turning them into ideas other researchers can understand and use.
Academia already rewards new discoveries more than the work explaining and connecting them (I talk about this at length, and am working on a subsequent piece that goes deeper into the history of that).
OpenAI organizing groups to understand these results seems like a useful response, but I think that structurally the incentives and culture aren't there yet.
what is the point of organizing results into something other researchers can use if other researchers aren't going to be doing research and research can be delegated to LLMs? (a la - humans are the bottleneck)
Seeing OpenAI's publication on "Working with academic communities to build scientific understanding" motivated me to finally post it.
I expect we’ll continue getting faster at producing results than at turning them into ideas other researchers can understand and use.
Academia already rewards new discoveries more than the work explaining and connecting them (I talk about this at length, and am working on a subsequent piece that goes deeper into the history of that).
OpenAI organizing groups to understand these results seems like a useful response, but I think that structurally the incentives and culture aren't there yet.