😈 ICML Auto-Acknowledge Cycle: A Dark Satire
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Have you ever opened your inbox, clicked on that long-awaited ICML rebuttal response, and been greeted not by thoughtful engagement... but by a cold, lifeless "Acknowledge"?
I have. And in that moment, I didn’t rage. I didn’t cry.
I smirked.
Why? Because just seconds earlier, I received another email, from the same conference, inviting me to review ** 17 papers**.
Yes, 17!!!!
You see, I don’t need to join any PC committee. In the academic matryoshka doll world we live in, today’s rejected author is tomorrow’s reviewer. And so, I logged in. I looked at those bright, innocent submissions queued up for my judgment.
And I felt power. Pure, unfiltered, academic power.
"This paper uses the latest diffusion models? Highly innovative?"
Score: 1."Your experiments outperform all baselines? Code open-sourced?"
Score: 1."You cited my previous paper and even thanked me in the acknowledgements?"
Still a 1.My review? Always the same line:
"The contributions are incremental."Each minor flaw?
"Fatal flaw."I stared at the screen, imagining the expression of authors across the globe as they read my reviews — an expression not unlike my own three days ago when I saw that “Acknowledge.”
Rebuttals? Oh, I handle them with elegance:
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For detailed, passionate rebuttals full of counter-arguments:
→ Reply: "k" -
For authors who include extra experiments and charts:
→ Reply: "Noted." -
For those who quote half the literature to prove me wrong:
→ Reply: "I respectfully disagree."
When the Area Chair asked why I gave every paper a 1, I said solemnly:
"I am upholding the highest standards of our community."
And then, I laughed. Because this is the true circle of academia:
My paper got "Acknowledged".
Now it’s my turn to "Acknowledge" others.
Meanwhile, I’m pulling an all-nighter writing my next ICML submission — fully aware that its reviewers might be exactly the same authors I just slapped with a 1.
This is the academic food chain:
Get bitten in the morning. Bite back in the afternoon. Wait to get bitten again.
What’s the difference between academia and a battlefield?
On the battlefield, at least the fight ends.
In academia, the war restarts every deadline.
—Inspired by a true story.
April 2025, somewhere between a rejected paper and seventeen new victims. -
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So, this is the so called reward hacking
