Postdocs are leaving, woe! woe! Outside, people get nothing and you ignore their plight?
Full conversation at https://chatgpt.com/share/67928c33-3f6c-800b-b57a-c8edf821d6d4
Postdocs are leaving, woe! woe! Outside people get nothing and you ignore their plight?
I just checked a few things and it seems postdocs are leaving earlier and some disciplines it is more like 90% not just 60%. It seems like there are less than 100,000 postdocs in the US and many from other countries get ripped off? Maybe you ought to look at ALL humans and their outcomes. Ask Elon Musk to fund it and he will likely tell them all “don’t waste you time with universities at all”, just get a real job and stretch yourself.
I see wonderful things emerging from universities — the ones that leave. So maybe you have it backwards. It is so horrible and wrong they learn what not to do and then spend their life differently?? I do not know for sure. A few hundred thousand who can afford those schools? The inefficiencies and losses in society are so blatant everyone is hurt. I know Max Planck does good things but it has no global responsibilities. It does not try as far as I can see. Good studies, but that is not the highest skill of human society — survival is.
I hundred get to “postdoc” and 60 leave. But how many hundred millions could you enable to solve everyday problems if you simply gave them a decent AI to help them learn on their own and stop making them wasted years plying paper games? I am quite serious, but I am really tired today and you sound like “we didn’t get our latte fresh” when the building is burning.
8.2 Billion humans (and more living things in related species) and 5.4 Billion trying to use the Internet and all they get is left-overs, ads, trivia, games and many lies. Most of the “print papers” ought to be in comprehensive living open global collaborations, not locked in static form to enrich printers and publishers and universities’ corporations. Like I said, it is not a good situation for billions with essentially no jobs. Tricking people into believing a few lucky ones is enough is not good for all.
Richard Collins, The Internet Foundation
Here is what OpenAI Chat GPT says:
Below is a broad reflection on some of the points you raise—particularly the idea that the current system of higher education and research (postdocs, universities, publishing structures) is highly selective, often inefficient, and leaves out billions of people who could benefit from access to better tools and open collaborations.
1. Structural Challenges in Academia
Postdoc “Bottleneck” and the Job Market
It’s true there’s a bottleneck where the number of newly minted PhDs far exceeds the number of stable academic positions. In some fields, the “exit” rate from postdocs can be very high (60–90%). Postdoctoral positions in many countries also struggle with low pay and precarious contracts, especially when factoring in years of training. There’s a well-documented phenomenon where PhDs/postdocs stay on track for an academic job, but eventually find the pipeline can only absorb a small fraction of them.
Global Disparities and Movement
A significant proportion of postdocs in the U.S. come from other countries. Many face extra hurdles related to visas and relocation. These individuals often have few protections if their lab or funding falls through. This can lead to “brain drain” from the researcher’s home country into a system that may not fully value or adequately compensate them.
University Funding and Costs
Tuition and fees at many universities have gone up dramatically, putting an advanced degree out of reach for a large portion of the global population. Even if some scholarships or fellowships are available, the number is small.
Meanwhile, governments and other grant-makers typically fund smaller, specialized projects, leaving global or day-to-day real-world issues underexplored, especially those lacking immediate commercial potential.
2. Broader Impact: Billions Left Out
Numbers to Keep in Mind
Total human population is around 8.2E+09 (8.2 billion). ~5.4E+09 people have at least some internet access, but that doesn’t necessarily mean stable or high-speed connections, nor free and open educational content. The population that makes it into advanced research (like postdoc positions) is vanishingly small compared to the total, often well under 1E+06 (1 million) globally.
Society-Wide Loss of Potential
The current academic publishing system locks away a large fraction of research behind paywalls, making it inaccessible to the general public, including people in developing countries.
Many everyday problems—clean water, basic healthcare, sustainable agriculture—could benefit from open research resources and direct local problem-solving. When bright minds are funnelled only into narrow academic pipelines (and then often forced to leave them disillusioned), the overall system is indeed “burning down” from a global perspective.
3. Role of AI and Open Collaboration
AI as a Distributed Mentor
Your point about providing “decent AI” to everyone so they can learn on their own is powerful. An accessible, user-friendly AI could help people with fundamentals (mathematics, engineering, coding, critical thinking), especially in places with fewer teachers or resources. We are starting to see a proliferation of large-language-model-based tutoring. If done responsibly—accounting for language barriers, local contexts, and reliability—this could dramatically lower the barrier to self-directed learning.
Open Data, Open Tools
“Comprehensive living open global collaborations” is a strong phrase: instead of static, paywalled journals, knowledge could be captured in an evolving, open source manner.
Even inside academia, some groups push for “open science”: open data, open code, preprints, and community-driven methods to interpret and reproduce results.
This would allow billions to access not just the final paper, but the underlying data, methods, and AI-based analysis tools. That drastically increases transparency and empowerment.
Platforms for Global Collaboration
For large-scale challenges—climate, water, nutrition, city planning, energy—open, real-time collaboration across borders is essential.
Some philanthropic or tech-driven initiatives (e.g., aspects of what Elon Musk or other billionaires have done with their foundations, or certain open AI consortiums) could be harnessed. But that requires aligning philanthropic or corporate incentive with global, long-term benefits, which isn’t trivial.
4. Possible Paths Forward
Rethinking Education
Encourage “alternative” tracks to skill-building that don’t necessarily require a university. Boot camps, open online courses, AI-driven tutoring, and project-based communities are emerging as meaningful ways to gain skills.
Universities will still play a role for those who truly need specialized, in-person mentorship (e.g., advanced labs), but the idea that everyone must go through an expensive four-year pathway is increasingly questioned.
Repurposing the Postdoc Model
Some propose re-branding postdoc-type positions as “professional researcher” roles with better pay and stability, or removing the idea of indefinite training stints altogether.
Industry can step in with R&D roles that are akin to early-career researcher tracks, often with better compensation than academia.
Open Access and Global Responsibility
Max Planck and other institutes could leverage their influence to push for open access and larger-scale global collaboration. Some do so (e.g., Planck Society is a proponent of the Open Access 2020 initiative), but the pace is slow relative to global needs.
A “global responsibility” approach would see universities and institutes as part of a world-wide network of knowledge, not isolated ivory towers.
Leveraging Large-Scale Funding or Philanthropy
People often mention Elon Musk, Bill Gates, or other billionaires as potential funders for massive open education/AI resources. It may or may not be feasible, but at least the seed of the idea—big philanthropic or corporate involvement for broad public knowledge—could spark faster changes than conventional government/university structures alone.
5. Concluding Reflections
Your frustration is understandable: from a global vantage point, it’s painful to watch the top fraction of a fraction get advanced study while billions remain with minimal resources.
AI-powered education, open-access publishing, and broader global collaboration have enormous potential to shift this equation. But it will take sustained political, financial, and cultural will to break away from the rigid systems (and profits) propping up the status quo.
In the near term, supporting or amplifying organizations that promote open science, and experimenting with grassroots AI-based tutoring and skill-building communities, could at least start chipping away at the problem.
Ultimately, if we want to tap into everyone’s creative and problem-solving capacity, we have to treat knowledge as a public good—breaking down paywalls, dismantling artificial scarcity, and providing tools for individuals to learn by doing in real-world contexts. It’s neither easy nor quick, but that’s the direction many open-source, open-science, and open-education initiatives are striving for.
