AI PhD: CS academia is dead — ICLR submissions are just swapped-in base models

ZeeshanZiaML · x · 2026-09-26

An AI PhD says CS academia is 'dead': during ICLR reviewer bidding he found papers recycling the same recipe he learned two years ago — swap in a newer video gen base model and ship. He suspects many of the 60k submissions were AI-conceived, and argues industry (World Labs' Atlas on 4D scenes, GPT-6 Astra demos) has left academia far behind. Meta's Dimitris Papail quotes it: basic research is in a rough spot but vital — go after problems so hard they'd have seemed hubristic a year ago.

Related event: AI PhD Slams ICLR Submissions as Recycled, Says Academia Lags Industry(2 posts)→

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