The r/deeplearning post asking for nostalgia about the pre-2020 era [12] is not technically remarkable — it is culturally precise. The framing "No marketers. Just pure cool computer science research" [12] identifies the specific rupture: not that AI became powerful, but that it acquired an external audience that now co-authors how progress is defined. A field defines itself by the questions it finds worth asking. A brand is defined by what it can promise to people who did not ask the questions. The r/deeplearning community is describing the moment those…