> Overall, it seems we are starting to recycle ideas because there isnt enough lit review and or mentoring from senior deep learning / ML folks who can quickly look at a paper and tell the author where the work has been already investigated.

Arguably, the literature synthesis and knowledge discovery problem has been overwhelming in many fields for a long time; but I wonder if, in ML lately, an accelerated (if not frantic) level of competition may be working against the collegial spirit.