What are the hottest areas of *non*-LLM AI work currently?

Question

10+ years ago, "AI" would likely refer to work in RL, evolutionary/genetic algorithms, etc.Nowadays most of the spotlight seems centered on LLMs, CNNs, and other methods that are either human-labeled or at least reliant on human-created data, and have a static separation between "learning" and "inference".I know that there are still non-LLM, non-CNN, non-anthropocentric topics of AI development currently, in RL and in other areas. Which would you say are the most prominent or promising today, or likeliest to come to fruition?

bjourne · Accepted Answer

SLAM and algorithms for autonomous movement is very hot. Too bad most of its applications are military.

pizza · Answer

In order of nicheness- Singular learning theory- Vector-symbolic architectures- Homomorphic learning

dira3 · Answer

BTW, on the topic of the fading of genetic algorithms, here is an interesting recent take: https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/04/17/what-happe...

What are the hottest areas of non-LLM AI work currently?

SLAM and algorithms for autonomous movement is very hot. Too bad most of its applications are military.

In order of nicheness
- Singular learning theory
- Vector-symbolic architectures
- Homomorphic learning

BTW, on the topic of the fading of genetic algorithms, here is an interesting recent take: https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/04/17/what-happe...