Influential AI Researchers' Social Media Impact Papers, Skewing Trends
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A few influential AI/ML researchers on social media have an outsized impact on which papers get attention and citations. Two researchers were studied - @_akhaliq and @arankomatsuzaki - and their tweets correlate with 2-3x more citations.
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The flood of AI/ML research papers is overwhelming. Preprint platforms publish hundreds daily. Researchers rely on influencers to highlight noteworthy ones.
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Influencer tweets may inadvertently skew research trends by emphasizing certain topics, labs, or big names over others. This could limit diversity of ideas.
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More awareness is needed that norms are shifting from review scores driving citations, to social media hype playing a key role.
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Conferences, institutions, and engineers should be cautious of bandwagon hype effects. Influencers should promote diverse research. Better systems to surface quality work amid information overload are also needed.