> An average Joe could probably write influential ML papers by gluing RNN/GAN layers to existing models and fiddling with the parameters until they beat current

> An average Joe could probably write influential ML papers by gluing RNN/GAN layers to existing models and fiddling with the parameters until they beat current state of the art. Right, but you have to remember there are legions of grad students doing exactly this so it ends up being quite competitive to churn out papers this way.