Is Intrinsic Motivation a Viable PhD Topic in 2026? [D]

Summary

I started a PhD in CS about a year an a half ago. Generally speaking my topic is on intrinsic motivation (more commonly people refer to it as unsupervised RL). Intrinsic motivation (IM) is a niche field within AI. It seeks to develop reward signals which are not specific to any task but rather something closer to the low level motivators that drive intelligent behaviors in animals. Some prominent examples are: Empowerment: https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.00005 Diversity is all you need: https://arxiv

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