In the technology world, where I spend my days, Elixir v1.20 was just released. It’s exciting to have the gradual type system now fully baked into the compiler, which was the result of years of research and effort from the Elixir core team and a group of academics. One of the most insightful comments on this release came from a user on Lobste.rs:
This post is an occasion to advertise for long-term public-funded research… We benefit from this work, collectively, thanks to the bright people working in public service, the academic values of sharing our work as widely as possible. (source)[https://lobste.rs/s/wq1csk/elixir_v1_20_released_now_gradually_typed#c_2eppte]
I’ve seen Guillaume Duboc and Universite Paris Cite cited on Elixir related papers for years but never made the direct connection between taxpayer dollars and the work being done at a public research institution in France. Taxes cover a lot of tangibles: infrastructure, services, healthcare (in most first world countries), but there are intangibles that are less focused on keeping you safe and healthy today looking, instead, to the future by funding education and innovation. A new typing system for a “niche” programming language may not seem like an earth moving innovation, and perhaps not. Yet none of this research happened in a vacuum, researchers talk cross disciplinary thinking happens, and it leads to real outcomes for real people. My work is going to be improved, directly, because of the work that was impart funded by the French Government for Duboc’s research.
For me this is a microcosm, there are countless impacts of greater importance brought about in my life through publicly funded research. Often the thread from funding, to research, to proof, marketability and production is far too circuitous to point too in a causal kind of way. Life saving drugs, better public health outcomes, breakthroughs in engineering: this is why have a “society” and I believe it’s all well worth funding!
Of course “funding” gets thrown around by a lot of different groups and interests. The real magic; however, is public funding. It’s transparent, the results are there, for anyone. I’ve read Duboc’s paper; good luck reading whatever research a private company like OpenAI or Anthropic is producing!