Back-of-envelope math: 60k ICLR submissions equal roughly one per AI PhD student worldwide
kchonyc · x · 2026-09-21
A quick calculation making rounds: with 30k PhD students working on AI worldwide and half of ICLR's 60k abstracts assumed to be NeurIPS-rejection placeholders, that works out to roughly one submission per student — suggesting the submission boom is the natural output of the field's size, not an anomaly.
Related event: ICLR 2027 Sees 60k+ Submissions, Sparking Debate Over Paper Inflation(5 posts)→
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