[Fishysoup]

It's the bullshit process by which people get funding. Make something that has some potentially interesting engineering value, hype it up to hell and back, and funding agencies, investors etc. are more likely to back you. Probably this wasn't everyone's first plan all along, but when people who make a marginally better hot-dog / not-hot-dog classifier put so much spin on it, then everyone else has to just to remain visible. Moreover, people have to publish findings before their competition does, meaning sloppier and less interesting work. It's the snake-eating-its-own-tail plague that impacts so much of academia.

[unishark]

I'd say its the job of academic researchers to dream up high-risk ideas to work on, and to hype up incremental advances as potentially proof-of-concept for those ideas (when they're decades away still, with many potentially unsolvable hurdles left). Generally they are careful to give all sides though, since their reputation among their peers is the basis for their career. The media is a very different story. They just need to catch the interest of the mostly-ignorant, then move on to something new the next story.

[buboard]

> impacts so much of academia

i think the trend started from the industry , but you re right warrantless self-promotion very pervasive in academia , and it's sad that it works!