From plutonium to CMOS to LeCun: scientists shaped by their own discoveries
IgorCarron · x · 2026-09-20
The author lists rare cases where scientists were directly impacted by their own work:
- Glenn Seaborg, discoverer of plutonium, went on to find rapidly decaying iodine for medical imaging — his mother was a recipient
- Eric Fossum's CMOS sensors now equip virtually all smartphones
- Yann LeCun, AI leader and ICLR co-founder, is now at the forefront of AI disrupting the scientific process itself
His takeaway: AI is one of the few fields whose creators are being disrupted by their own creation.
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