The result is obvious, but the question is demonstrably not. Good researchers know how to ask interesting questions that no one had bothered to ask before. Seeing clever work like this makes me reflect and continually ask myself "What cool angles am I missing?"

Novelty is overrated. Finding proof and pushing for accountability is so much more important.

Isn’t novelty also arbitrary and subjective? I recall when everyone seemed to think there was novelty in applying ML to X, where X was something very specific. “Look, it works here too!” I doubt that’s considered novel now.