Extrapolating ICLR Submissions to 1.23 Trillion by 2046 Sparks Sci-Fi First Contact Joke
prajdabre · x · 2026-09-24
ZhiHuangPhD fitted an exponential model to historical ICLR submission counts (N(t) = 0.2354 × 2.429^(t−2013), with 60,000+ submissions projected for 2027), extrapolating to roughly 1.23 trillion submissions per year by 2046 — about 123 submissions per person on Earth.
prajdabre turned the number into a short sci-fi story: in 2147, a ring-world civilization detects a narrow-band artificial signal from 1,203 light-years away, repeating every 11.3 minutes. After decoding, the first message from an alien species turns out to be the boilerplate of an ICLR 2047 reviewer invitation: "Due to unprecedented growth in submissions…"
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