Comment by Karrot_Kream
1 day ago
I'm not sure of your background, but FWIW everyone in my PhD program in my elite CS program had varying levels of anguish and angst when realizing that their efforts were mostly suited for "coloring in the blanks." The PhD Grind [1] felt like a poignant capture of those feelings.
[1]: https://dokumen.pub/the-phd-grind-a-phd-student-memoir-3.htm...
this is what research was for the majority of people, even those talented enough to do it. there's a reason we remember the names of people who invent whole ass new fields, like einstein, grothendieck, turing, riemann, etc.
the hope might be that AI will fill in the remaining envelopes and let us focus on building new theories. but that's like trying to build a castle in the sky without being grounded and understanding how castles on earth are built. Imo, it won't work, but maybe I'm wrong. It's not like people need to know how to write assembly these days.
The link got slashdotted.