The Plight of Groundbreaking Research: Great Ideas Left Untapped

Many groundbreaking research papers, despite their immense potential, fail to reach their full impact. The article uses the McCulloch-Pitts neural network paper and Miller's 7±2 law paper as examples to explore the reasons behind this phenomenon. On the one hand, conflicts in academic viewpoints and researchers' adherence to their specific fields (``stovepiping'') lead to an insufficient understanding of the profound implications of these papers. On the other hand, the incentive structure of publishing also leads to numerous derivative works rather than genuine advancements of the core ideas. While current AI research shows a mix of innovation and imitation, we must remain vigilant against overlooking groundbreaking work with potentially transformative significance.