I strongly suspect consciousness will be the next great paradigm in physics, following electrodynamics, quantum mechanics, and general relativity, now that the ‘detour’ of string theory is mostly behind us. Some, like Penrose, are already thinking about it but too late in their careers to make any breakthroughs.

Machine learning research is the logical entry point as the ‘particle physics’ of cognition and consciousness.

I think in retrospect we will say it was obvious why so many physics PhDs were working on ML during this era.