There's a party atmosphere in the hallowed halls of science. The International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) in Vienna is not just a meeting place for researchers, but a veritable vanity fair for the tech industry. Where 30 pioneers once discussed the future of artificial intelligence, there are now almost 10,000 participants. What happened? The ICML is like a fairground for the recruitment of Google, Meta and Microsoft. From niche to mainstream Thomas G. Dietterich, a veteran of the scene, sums it up: "For a long time, nobody paid any attention to us, but now everything is suddenly revolving around us." The turning point came in 2012, when a breakthrough in image recognition opened the door to a new era of AI. Since then, huge sums of money have been pouring into research, and the tech giants are vying for the brightest minds. The big advertising The ICML is like a recruitment fair. Google, Meta and Microsoft host exclusive par...