[epistasis]

I think it gets marketed too much and hated on too much.

Given the utter dominance of Google advertising, I think the hating is a necessary counter in order to at least place it in its right place.

Whatever skill Google has computationally is more than matched by their media dominance and public relations prowess.

[mtlmtlmtlmtl]

I find this view very strange. If you apply the same logic to politics, the outcome is pretty grim. And we've been seeing more and more of that.

I don't like hype or hate that's devoid of nuance. But actual scientists working in these fields don't generally pay attention to these things as much as we might. They read the papers, and they have years of training to help them decide what is overhyped and what isn't. I'm not sure what happens on HN or in advertising channels has such a huge bearing on this.

[epistasis]

Actual scientists in the field are usually the ones providing the hate and counterbalance to the massive marketing machine that is Google.

The scientists are not the ones who need the counter-marketing, that's for the people who are not experts and only hear this one achievement (which is significant!) being trumpeted repeatedly as Google maximizes the PR benefits of conducting research.

It's like IBM's Watson play, except that there is at least a some serious meat behind AlphaFold.