Jason Wei on Method-Driven Research as a Huge Opportunity

Jason Wei draws a distinction between problem-driven research and method-driven research, arguing that recent advances in large language models and AlphaEvolve make it clear that method-driven research represents a massive opportunity. While he acknowledges that problem-driven research has its merits, his core thesis is that pursuing powerful general methods — rather than targeting specific problems — can yield outsized results, as demonstrated by the broad impact of LLMs and DeepMind's AlphaEvolve.