I disagree with this, basically because AI is a pre-paradigm science.
I am gratified to find that someone else shares this opinion.
What does an average AI prof know that a physics graduate who can code doesn't know?
A better way to phrase the question might be: what can an average AI prof. do that a physics graduate who can code, can't?
Each prof will, of course, have a niche app that they do well (in fact sometimes there is too much pressure to have a "trick" you can do to justify funding), but the key question is: are they more like a software engineer masquerading as a scientist than a real scientist? Do they have a paradigm and theory that enables thousands of engineers to move into completely new design-spaces?
I think that the closest we have seen is the ML revolution, but when you look at it, it is not new science, it is just statistics correctly applied.
I have seen some instances of people trying to push forward the frontier, such as the work of Hutter, but it is very rare.
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