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AI boosts research careers but narrow the span of ideas explored: study

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: AI boosts research careers but narrow the span of ideas explored: study

#41

Post by nathan_compton »

Marha01 wrote: post #23
nathan_compton wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Science advances one funeral at a time" Well, these AI are never going to die in any real sense, so expect them to make orthodoxy more sticky, not less.

AIs get replaced with newer models.

Which are still aggressively trained to reproduce the orthodoxy. They have to, to be viable products, since most people want to know what the orthodoxy is when they pose a question to an LLM and because not even experts can consistently agree on what elements of the fringe are genuinely useful to consider and which are bullshit, so that doesn't get into the training data. This will get even more pronounced in later models, for which the training data is much more curated.

I presume you are an expert in some field. Think carefully about the boundary of the field and all the subtlety and complexity of that boundary and all the oversimplification you do to communicate that stuff to lay people. AI is, in some large sense, directed at all lay people, not experts, and even if we wanted to direct it at experts, at the edges of knowledge, there really isn't a lot of training data for that. Mathematics is a sort of exception because it has very clear validation criteria which makes RF particularly easy for it.

Re: AI boosts research careers but narrow the span of ideas explored: study

#43

Post by rightbyte »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #24
Arainach wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is significantly more permanent. LLMs are autocomplete generators based off current context, and training generations of people to always ask the planet burners instead of learning to think for themselves - and never having the experience of having to slowly think over the same thing for an extended period - may well mean a permanent cap to human knowledge and a dramatic slowdown or end to new knowledge.

You act like humanity doesn't exist in a competitive environment. If you think AI codegen is a mistake? Just relax, keep writing code by hand and wait for the pendulum to prove you right while showering you in wealth. There are plenty of people making this bet, and I wish the best of luck to you because I'm 99% certain you're on the losing end of it.

> the pendulum to prove you right while showering you in wealth.

This seems like some variant of "why don't you short the market and become rich". It doesn't work like that.

Re: AI boosts research careers but narrow the span of ideas explored: study

#45

Post by pton_xd »

esafak wrote: post #8
xmcp123 wrote: post #3

“Technology that is based on everything humanity has already done, fails to do things that humanity has not yet done”

Are you following the news? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48863490 LLMs don't just 'average' their data.

They interpolate data in an XYZ dimensional space. The implications of that is beyond our comprehension.

I have a hard time believing that all novel concepts yet to be discovered are contained within that space, though.

Re: AI boosts research careers but narrow the span of ideas explored: study

#46

Post by koe123 »

dahart wrote: post #32

> Scientists who adopt AI gain productivity and visibility: On average, they publish three times as many papers, receive nearly five times as many citations, and become team leaders a year or two earlier than those who do not. To me this effect doesn’t seem to reflect on AI very much, it seems to reflect on humans. Like maybe this is more evidence of the Babble Hypothesis and the incentives in research than AI, no? h…

You reckon there could be any selection bias? Some means justify the ends reasoning.

Re: AI boosts research careers but narrow the span of ideas explored: study

#47

Post by analog31 »

skeledrew wrote: post #9

As with other fields touched, AI is merely amplifying what was already there. The aim of many scientists isn't discovery in and of itself. Discovery is a side effect of their primary drive to publish and - hopefully - become well known. And establishments only make things worse, because it's the things that are most likely to produce tangible results (the papers, or economically valuable products) that get the most f…

Do you know any scientists?

Disclosure: Physicist.

Re: AI boosts research careers but narrow the span of ideas explored: study

#48

Post by vatsachak »

bwfan123 wrote: post #13

> AI is largely automating the most tractable parts of science rather than expanding its frontiers By definition, creativity cannot be automated, and AI is a fantastic automation machine. It can explore thinking paths at a rate humans cannot match. But creativity is bringing the unthinkable into the thinkable, and that requires sensory experience [1]. Specifically, new definitions and symbols which never existed befo…

Creativity can be automated. Humans are automated creativity invented by evolution

Re: AI boosts research careers but narrow the span of ideas explored: study

#49

Post by skeledrew »

throw94949499 wrote: post #39
skeledrew wrote: post #9

As with other fields touched, AI is merely amplifying what was already there. The aim of many scientists isn't discovery in and of itself. Discovery is a side effect of their primary drive to publish and - hopefully - become well known. And establishments only make things worse, because it's the things that are most likely to produce tangible results (the papers, or economically valuable products) that get the most f…

You could also argue the opposite: The aim of many scientists is discovery, publishing is a side chore to survive and to get funding. Automate paperwork and you get more time for discovering.

Well the paperwork is automatable, and things are being automated. But still there're the findings that the article points to: it's leading to far more publishing (and ladder-climbing) than novel discoveries.

Re: AI boosts research careers but narrow the span of ideas explored: study

#50

Post by bloqs »

dahart wrote: post #32

> Scientists who adopt AI gain productivity and visibility: On average, they publish three times as many papers, receive nearly five times as many citations, and become team leaders a year or two earlier than those who do not. To me this effect doesn’t seem to reflect on AI very much, it seems to reflect on humans. Like maybe this is more evidence of the Babble Hypothesis and the incentives in research than AI, no? h…

This is superseded/proven by basic psychometrics it seems? Big Five Extraversion is roughly equivalent to "social dominance", how well an individual implements themselves in a social setting. "Extroverts" or people high in the trait are of course more likely to see progression on the basis they are superior at presenting value in a social setting in terms of social ability, which is often (falsely) accepted as a proxy for overall competence. This is why they end up running orgs as well
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