No one’s denigrating those who choose to do a PhD, most of them I am sure are bright, ambitious and thoughtful individuals. Unfortunately the Academic Meat grinder system, successfully grinds them into working 80hr weeks on meaningless projects, meaningless papers that just serve to create jobs for other academics. They could be doing so much more with the faculty they possess, alas they would be more useful as a barista. (I am not picking on humanities PhD system, which is a bigger cesspool than normal, all my criticism is aimed at STEM PhD system. My actual advice would be do a PhD if you judge the lab you are joining as doing great work, lab is everything, don’t join a PhD if it’s not a lab that you’ve vetted or if you didn’t get into that lab.)
thesis: "Her PhD thesis, titled Deterritorializing Gender in Sydney's Breakdancing Scene: A B-girl's Experience of B-boying" (from Wikipedia)
Now I'm sure it was worthwhile, but I'm struggling to see it as a presumptive positive move to humanity for her work.
And there's lots just like it.
I'd even go so far as to assume that it's the extreme minority of phds that actually make a difference "for humanity" and not simply a good career move for the degree holder.
Beneficial to humanity does not mean "increasing the GDP". Humans are not machines; there are things that are valuable that is not technology. Just from the title of the thesis I would not judge its value. Analyzing culture and writing about your own ideas can be a good thing.
More important to me is whether it was written because someone really cared about the topic, or wrote 100s of pages of nothing to have a title.
But I also want to comment on your idea that researching AI is superior to researching dancing because it is more beneficial for humanity. I am myself in AI adjacent research, but I still disagree. Dancing is a deeply human thing, and we should care about it. And I believe that many people (especially outside of this bubble) will think that many parts of currently hyped AI research has very questionable "benefit for humanity", such as AI image generators.
I'm 100% with you on the nebulous value of AI, however given the "theme" of HN I think the bias is here towards such an assumption.
I am not dismissing the value of dance or culture or social science or even event management (or farming or any of the dozens and dozens of things people can get Ph.D's in).
And I note that in my post above.
I am seriously not being sarcastic by saying it's worthwhile. Probably to her. Maybe her department. Maybe even to break dancing (well, maybe not break dancing).
But the presumption that someone getting a Ph.D has somehow "uplifted us all" as a default seems highly improbable to me.
It no doubt uplifts a number of the degree holders, if statistics bear out.
But that's like saying "If Elon Musk becomes rich, we all become rich" and I don't think that's true. Not even in some "trickle down" economics kinda way.
If Elon gets a Ph.D we have all to assume some intrinsic benefit to humanity?
I'm unsure whether I should reply because I get the feeling that you think "beneficial to humanity" looks like someone working at OpenAI and not doing research on, say, anthropology.
You tell me if for any definition of "beneficial to humanity" that all or most Ph.Ds would fit that definition presumptively/intrinsically.
I chose arbitrary fields that I suspected most readers of HN wouldn't be in, be familiar with, or necessarily esteem just to make the case more obvious. For example, a Ph.D in dance.
There are lots and lots of PhDs in all kinds of things. You can get a Phd in videogames, food hygiene, librarianship, gender studies, ancient greek, theology.
I am sure they are (mostly) worthwhile, and I'm not knocking any of them.
I don't see how they would, by default, be seen to benefit humanity. Some small number might. A very small number. Possibly an extremely small number.
According to one random website there are over 70,000 new PhDs every year.
That's a lot of assumed benefit to humanity. Or.. is it?
It's not "an essay" it's a thesis done by someone who is an expert in the field. AI has been advancing but is, generally, not yet considered to be an expert in much.
The idea that a PhD is an expert in the field is, I think, a generous assumption.
And you are missing my point about the wide range of fields to which these novice experts are coming from.
Rachael Gunn is an expert in the field of (break)dance, if I extend your position, and her essay is an expert testimony broadening the field of knowledge?
I think it's entirely possible for PhD (or Masters or anyone) to extend debunked theories, to extend or invent nonsensical positions yet to be debunked, to do research of no value, or merely for value to the student and their advisor as a way to increase citations, career advancement, and so on.
I would argue that this is a more reasonable default assumption. In fact, I think the university system favors this likelihood. Students aren't, to my knowledge, asked to examine the worlds problems and take a stab at them.
They are lead into very specific tracks, possibly by their advisor, possibly by the department, possibly by funding or current trends in the field, to do work around a particular area which may go nowhere close to helping all of humanity.
And a "thesis" is just a a really long essay. It has no special quality or instrinsic value, in my humble opinion.
There is no perfection in life. But I will still put forward that the explicit goal of a PhD is exactly what you feel is hard to believe: it is to become an expert in some field and produce novel and impactful research. It’s not just “writing an essay”: there is a thesis, sure, but also an expectation of several other peer-reviewed papers and a defense. This is actually very critical and often forgotten in Hacker News, which largely does not understand why peer review is important. The whole point is that all then other experts in the field; the ones who have already gotten their credentials and are respected for their contributions, all come together and repeatedly verify that the contributions are worthy.
Does fraud happen? Of course. Do people submit more papers on hot topics because they think they are more likely to be approved? Of course. Are some people plagiarizing or misrepresenting the impact of their work? Of course. But the point is to reduce this, and the specific goal organizationally is to reduce these because they harm the reputation and purity of the idea.
I feel like your concern is similar to someone going “firefighting is not actually intrinsically beneficial for humanity”. When someone tells me they’re a firefighter I generally think that they’re doing something valuable. You can argue, well some of them use it as an excuse to get inside a house so they can loot it. Or others are private firefighters for oil companies, and not the “good” community firefighters that save houses. Maybe some of them are doing it for the money and not because they actually particularly care for saving people. But I would counter that the concept is sound and that obvious abuse is, in theory, supposed to be punished.
