Researchers Are Drifting Away From Foundational Tech
stanfordnlp · x · 2026-07-15
This post shares thoughts related to Stanford CS336, highlighting a highly relatable scenario: the author is retaking *Language Modeling from Scratch*, while Percy Liang's comments carry a hint of disappointment. The main takeaway from the quote is that **AI researchers are increasingly detached from foundational technologies**. In the past, researchers would implement and train models themselves; earlier on, they would at least download models like BERT for fine-tuning. Today, many simply get by by prompting a proprietary model. It reflects a shift felt across both academia and industry: - The barrier to entry for research has lowered, - But the mastery of underlying implementations, training details, and system understanding is also weakening.
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