Stanford professor: papers are dead as a measure of expertise, academia must rebuild evaluation
anshulkundaje · x · 2026-09-20
Stanford professor Anshul Kundaje argues in a thread that the era of papers as a measure of productivity, expertise, or accomplishment is over: odds of acceptance at "glam" conferences and journals are rapidly approaching random, and gatekeeping review times are growing exponentially.
He clarifies this isn't an argument against documenting or publishing work, but that the evaluation system is now completely broken. He urges scientists—especially in academia—to seriously discuss and test alternative ways of evaluating contributions, impact, and expertise, and warns against using AI to build worse systems that merely mimic the past. New systems must realign incentives: the goal of science should be progress on solving problems, not decorating CVs with paper counts, citations, and glam venues.
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