I feel this has nothing at all to do with LLMs and more to do with academic incentives in general. Focusing on quality over quantity won't advance your career.

I feel this has nothing at all to do with LLMs and more to do with academic incentives in general. Focusing on quality over quantity won't advance your career. Publishing lots of new papers will, as long as they meet the minimum threshold to be accepted into whatever journal or conference you are aiming for. Having one good paper won't increase your h-score, three mediocre papers might. Doubly so when there's a new breakthrough, where one of your low-effort papers might end up being the first saying something obvious that ends up being really important. Because then everyone will end up quoting your paper in perpetuity.