> the probabilistic programming community was talking about democratizing AI. Now they are talking about ... advanced research topics.
Fair point, and thanks for reminding me of our community's goal. In defense of "advanced research topics": In my experience peddling probabilistic programming, the biggest impediment has been users complaining "its too slow" or "it's less accurate than my existing bespoke [monolithic hacky] solution". Users are metrics focused, and they won't switch paradigms if that means quantitatively worse solutions in the short term. I see "advanced research topics" as necessary means to make our PPL systems competitive with existing bespoke solutions and therefore able attract users.
> the probabilistic programming community was talking about democratizing AI. Now they are talking about ... advanced research topics.
Fair point, and thanks for reminding me of our community's goal. In defense of "advanced research topics": In my experience peddling probabilistic programming, the biggest impediment has been users complaining "its too slow" or "it's less accurate than my existing bespoke [monolithic hacky] solution". Users are metrics focused, and they won't switch paradigms if that means quantitatively worse solutions in the short term. I see "advanced research topics" as necessary means to make our PPL systems competitive with existing bespoke solutions and therefore able attract users.