The author is a Princeton PhD grad working in physics. Funding for this type of work usually comes from the NSF. NSF is under attack by DOGE, and Trump has proposed slashing the NSF budget by 55%.
A reason used to justify these massive cuts is that AI will soon replace traditional research. This post demonstrates this assumption is likely false.
I used to work in academia and was involved in NSF-funded programs, so I have mixed feelings about this. Waste and inefficiency are rampant. BTW I'm not talking about failed projects or research that were dimmed "not important", but things like buying million-dollar equipment just to use up the budget, which then sits idle.
That said, slashing NSF funding by 50% won’t fix any of that. It’ll just shrink both the waste and the genuinely valuable research proportionally. So it's indeed a serious blow to real scientific progress.
I don’t really have a point, just want to put it here. Also to be fair this kind of inefficiency isn't unique to academia; it’s common anywhere public money is involved.
Research is a human endeavor and as all human endeavors it can be improved. But having personally known NSF funded researchers in the past, I can confidently say these are some of the most dedicated, hard-working people you will ever meet. Most of these people work 60-70 hrs a week for half the salary they could get in industry.
Also, industry is far from perfect too. Think of high-profile failures like the Apple car or Meta’s Metaverse, both of which wasted literally tens of billions of dollars, many times the entire annual NSF budget. Let’s not hold scientists to standards applied no where else.
This is a common saying, and I’m sure there’s some truth to it. But IMHO, the main reason is that PIs just want to use the money.
Because… why not? It's free money. Having the newest shiny equipment, at the very least, boosts your group’s reputation.
Not to mention that straight-up corruption (pocketing funds for personal gain) is not unheard of.
Even considering these inefficiencies, which are certainly to be taken seriously, there aren't a lot of things that have such a high ROI as research and education.
That’s a meme created and spread by pseudo-journalist Declan McCullagh specifically to tar Al Gore in the lead-up to the 2000 election.
Specifically, Gore said in an interview that he “took the initiative in creating the Internet” by introducing the bill to allow commercial traffic on ARPAnet, which McCullagh twisted in an article to “Al Gote claimed he invented the Internet” in order to to smear him.
Given how close that election turned out to be, this smear campaign likely changed the presidency, and given George WMD Bush's actions, changed the course of the world for the worse in many ways. (For those who were too young or not yet born at the time, these jokes were MASSIVE to the extent that became largely Al Gore was known for, for years after. So it's not much of an exaggeration to say they had a material impact on his perception and hence the votes.)
Al Gore understood technology, the internet, was a champion for the environment, and it's unbelievable today that he came that close to presidency (and then lost). When people say "we live in the bad timeline", one of the closest good timelines is probably one where this election went differently.
> Al Gore, a strong and knowledgeable proponent of the Internet, promoted legislation that resulted in President George H.W Bush signing the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991. This Act allocated $600 million
> In the early 1990s the Internet was big news ... In the fall of 1990, there were just 313,000 computers on the Internet; by 1996, there were close to 10 million. The networking idea became politicized during the 1992 Clinton–Gore election campaign, where the rhetoric of the information highway captured the public imagination.
Your parent comment is either joining in on the ridicule side or at least in misquoting:
> Gore became the subject of controversy and ridicule when his statement, "I took the initiative in creating the Internet", was widely quoted out of context. It was often misquoted by comedians and figures in American popular media who framed this statement as a claim that Gore believed he had personally invented the Internet.[54] Gore's actual words were widely reaffirmed by notable Internet pioneers, such as Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, who stated, "No one in public life has been more intellectually engaged in helping to create the climate for a thriving Internet than the Vice President."
A reason used to justify these massive cuts is that AI will soon replace traditional research. This post demonstrates this assumption is likely false.