The NeurIPS 2020 broader impacts experiment
This is a theory-focused academic conference, so all of the work being presented is pretty fundamental, meaning it could underpin all kinds of applications. By analogy, if I invent a hammer that is balanced to drive nails faster, should I consider the broader impact that a bad actor could build a shelter faster?<p>This is all about politicizing fundamental research, because it&#x27;s in a field that&#x27;s in the spotlight. As work becomes more applied, I can see the logic that scrutiny and consideration of its ethical implications should be increased, but pretending that authors of the kind of fundamental advances presented at a research conference like this need to speculate on the kind of end applications they could underpin is just people with nothing of value to contribute trying to muscle in to a popular venue.