Comment by lynndotpy
6 hours ago
This is a tale as old as time. Anyone who's followed AI research has seen this happen.
Take Geoffrey Hinton and his students, for one example. Moved from the USA to Canada in the Regan era. Hinton (and Canada in general) saw an influx of otherwise USA-bound students from 2016 on. And it's just happening again.
I was a PhD student in deep learning ("AI") in the US from 2018 through 2022. The "Muslim ban" at the time saw so many students who had their eyes set on the United States look elsewhere. During the 2020 election cycle, a fellow PhD student of mine (I was the only English student in an all-Chinese lab) thought Trump would win the election, and expressed that as, "I am so so so so so sad". (Anyone who has tried expressing their feelings in a language new to them will recognize this pattern of using intensifiers like this.)
But the Project 2025 changes we saw were unique. In my perspective as a former academic, I don't think people outside academia generally appreciate the extent to which the reputation the United States had for research has been damaged.
> This is a tale as old as time.
> But the Project 2025 changes we saw were unique.
I'm not sure what you're saying. Until the last paragraph, you seem to say that it's just the same thing continuing.
As an academic you know that such claims are irrelevant without quantifying them. For example, the US has had inflation continuously for decades; does that mean recent inflation is not significant? How about 1980 compared with 1960? If my town is washed away by a flood, I don't say, 'we've always had rain'.
> As an academic you know that such claims are irrelevant without quantifying them.
This is a principle which means nothing and it's not one I share, and I don't think you share it either. HackerNews is not academia, and academia does not deal exclusively in quant, (even though my corner of academia was indeed 100% numbers 100% of the time). I'm only expressing the impression I have from my perspective as someone who still has ties to academia.
> I'm not sure what you're saying.
It's already been common for the allure of the United States shift depending on the politics of the country and the politics of the specific academic. But that hadn't been enough to shake the crown off our head, so to speak. I am saying that I believe we are no longer number 1.
> If my town is washed away by a flood, I don't say, 'we've always had rain'.
To extend this analogy, I am saying "We've always had rain, we've even had floods. This is the first flood to wash away much of my town. I am sad about that and I don't think it will recover."