I'm surprised by how strong the disagreement is here. Even if what we most need right now is theoretical/pre-paradigmatic, that seems likely to change as AI develops and people reach consensus on more things; compare eg. the work done on optics pre-1800 to all the work done post-1800. Or the work done on computer science pre-1970 vs. post-1970. Curious if people who disagree could explain more - is the disagreement about what stage the field is in/what the field needs right now in 2022, or the more general claim that most future work will be empirical?
I'm surprised by how strong the disagreement is here. Even if what we most need right now is theoretical/pre-paradigmatic, that seems likely to change as AI develops and people reach consensus on more things; compare eg. the work done on optics pre-1800 to all the work done post-1800. Or the work done on computer science pre-1970 vs. post-1970. Curious if people who disagree could explain more - is the disagreement about what stage the field is in/what the field needs right now in 2022, or the more general claim that most future work will be empirical?