Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was originally a physicist too and then went into ML. I absolutely love research, yet this is my biggest gripe with the community. Everything is so product focused that I don't think we're even capable of making good products. Those small problems compound and add up to big problems. The thing I don't understand is that we're really good at recognizing that big problems can be broken down into small ones and that's…
I like your metaphor and will look into asphalt, from physics to chemistry… This also reminds me of another famous metaphor: “Attention Is All You Need”. The question is: are we paying attention to the wrong things as a society? Could it be that we are pouring all the resources into to getting the perfect solution to the wrong problem? Attention is the most valuable resource we have, as individuals and society.
I'm not saying we should just have a free for all but that the frequency of so called "dark horses" should make us really question if we're doing things the right way. Sure, maybe it's the right way 99% of the time, but if that 1% is extremely impactful then we shouldn't discount it. And in certain areas, like academia, I think this should probably be actively encouraged rather than discouraged. It's a matter of what our objectives are. Is it to produce impact or is it simply to produce?
Another important factor, and I believe this ultimately leads to a "Great Filter" (longer discussion), is that as we advance complexity grows faster. As just a naïve example we can look at a Taylor approximation of some given function. The trend will be that low order approximations are simple to calculate while computational complexity explodes as we move to higher order ones. It's not difficult to see how this is happening in our world. The first airplane was much easier to improve upon than any modern one. Just like the first computers were easier to improve than current ones. We could say the same about almost everything, from physics to chemistry. The barrier to entry for contributing is growing, even if some low hanging fruit exists there's certainly fewer of them than before.
So I agree. Attention, and specifically attention to detail, are a critical resource. But it's becoming more critical. The problem I see is we're actively discouraging this attention and such attention is difficult in the first place. Low order approximations don't help us is a world where higher order effects dominate.