[D] ICML 2026 – ICML desk-rejected my paper but kept me on as a reviewer. Wow?

As the title says, I admire the sheer audacity of the ICML committee. My paper gets desk-rejected, so technically I’m not part of the conference… and yet they’ve assigned me as a continued reviewer. Truly inspiring.

Rejected as an author, retained as unpaid labor. Academia really said: you don’t belong here, but your service does.

At this point, I assume my role is to review LLM-generated papers and reflect on my life choices.