[mistrial9]

> Throughout the conference, I noticed a subtle pressure on presenters to incorporate AI themes into their talks, regardless of relevance.

This is well-studied and not unique to AI, the USA in English, or even Western traditions. Here is what I mean: a book called Diffusion of Innovations by Rogers explains a history of technology introduction.. if the results are tallied in population, money or other prosperity, the civilizations and their language groups that have systematic ways to explore and apply new technology are "winners" in the global context.

AI is a powerful lever. The meta-conversation here might be around concepts of cancer, imbalance and chairs on the deck of the Titanic.. but this is getting off-topic for maths.

[golol]

I think another way to think about this is that subtly trying to consider AI in your AI-unrelated research is just respecting the bitter lesson. You need to at least consider how a data-driven approach might work for your problem. It could totally wipe you out - make your approach pointless. That's the bitter lesson.