> If his ideas had real substance, we would have seen substantial results by now
This is naive. Like saying if backprop had any real substance, it would have had results within 10 years of its publication in 1989
> Your chronological sequence is interesting, but it refers to a time when the number of researchers and the amount of compute available were a tiny fraction of what they are today.
Again. Those resources are important. But one resource being ignored is time. Try baking a turkey at 300 for 4 hours veruss at 900 for 1 hour and see how edible each one is
Backprop kept producing wins. That bought it time.
“Wait longer” is not a blank check. In 2026, with Meta-scale talent, data, and compute, serious ideas should show strong intermediate results, not just theory.
Time is necessary, but it is not evidence. More compute does not replace insight, but it does speed up falsification.
So no, skepticism is not naive. If a research program still cannot point to a clear empirical advantage after years, “it just needs more time” stops sounding like science and starts sounding like insulation from the scoreboard.
This is naive. Like saying if backprop had any real substance, it would have had results within 10 years of its publication in 1989
> Your chronological sequence is interesting, but it refers to a time when the number of researchers and the amount of compute available were a tiny fraction of what they are today.
Again. Those resources are important. But one resource being ignored is time. Try baking a turkey at 300 for 4 hours veruss at 900 for 1 hour and see how edible each one is