Be prepared: your life's research problem could be solved by a stranger's idle AI prompt on a commute
fkasummer · x · 2026-10-28
A thread on the psychological reality of AI-era research. @algekalipso warns that the problem you've devoted your life to — shower thoughts, sleepless nights, years of study — could be solved by a random person who idly prompted AI on their commute "just in case," without minutes of thought. He isn't judging whether this is good or bad, just urging researchers to be psychologically prepared, admitting he isn't. fkasummer adds the flip side: working alone on a frontier problem means undergoing ontological refactorings multiple times a day, for an unknown duration, guided only by your own judgment.
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