ICLR27 reviewers ignore theory papers' math, demand experiments
d_edge_sword · reddit · 2026-11-07
An author reports their ICLR 2027 applied-theory paper (60–70% theory, some experiments) got scores of 2/2/2: all three reviewers attacked novelty and demanded experiments without commenting on the math—the paper's core contribution. One admitted not understanding the paper or why the task exists.
Using accept-odds to track similar submissions, the author found the same pattern everywhere: no comments on the math, only on experiments. Even a paper with 20 pages of proofs got "assuming the proofs are correct (which can be done by AI in 2026), the theorems only show trivial conclusions"—a clear reject.
The author suspects this year's lack of reviewer bidding sent theory-heavy papers to pure comp-sci reviewers, and is deciding between rebuttal and withdrawal.
More from Research
- AI-generated peer reviews at ICLR/NeurIPS punish papers for stating their own limitations — serrjoa · 2026-11-07
- PSI says its internal system, on a non-public Anthropic model, proved the 2008 Aaronson-Ambainis conjecture — DeryaTR_ · 2026-11-07
- Perplexity reading-group slides connect modern model design to fast weights, SSMs — PMinervini · 2026-11-07
- Poincar3: 3D Self-Supervised Learning via Multi-View Self-Distillation — rsasaki0109 · 2026-11-07
- Incoming ML masters student: hundreds of papers read, still no elegant research ideas — sooham · 2026-11-07
- JITEngine synthesizes custom LLM inference engines for Apple Silicon, claims up to 2.7x speedup — AccBalanced · 2026-11-07