At the end of the day, it is about engineering. I'm self taught as a programmer, and I have also translated the latest deep learning paperwork into live code,

At the end of the day, it is about engineering. I'm self taught as a programmer, and I have also translated the latest deep learning paperwork into live code, AND i have novel research and experiments in code repos (not papers). The thing lacking is a hacker's credibility as an ML researcher, which i think is ironically preposterous given the self-teaching of complex domains with engineered proof. I don't see what an PhD has on the class of self taught hackers is what I'm trying to say. Just kidding, I know the answer is that they are trained in a certain institutional mentality. Give me my downvotes.