[dchftcs]

Even then the predictions need to be confirmed and proven not to be a fluke.

While technical reproducibility isn't always required (in case of observing a rare event, and there is enough expertise to evaluate the fidelity of the experiment / observation), it's also a bit of a strawman to attack this point specifically, because in any case science advancement needs a body of evidence appropriate for the theory being tested, and replicability is crucial for a field like DL where it should have been relatively easy, and where the basic premise axiomatically requires reproducibility (that a reapplication of the same techniques should yield comparable results).