I also left a PhD in the field (albeit right at the very start of the PhD) but this was also my impression.

I was shocked at how bad the state of the literature was with so many dubious papers, especially since the explosion of ML techniques.

I came from a Physics background and there you could generally trust the literature was legit and not just smoke and mirrors to get published.

Thanks, I appreciate your reply! I've worked in AI in past jobs - though I don't have an academic background in it - and I would definitely agree with the issue of garbage data, as I suspect would many real-world practitioners.