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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

#51

Post by _alternator_ »

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.

Seems to me that both perspectives are true, and the relative importance of the metric incentive vs the discovery incentive varies. But the metrics and rewards are critical to the perpetuation of the scientific discovery system; its really hard to disentangle.

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

#52

Post by cyanydeez »

bloqs wrote: post #50
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This is superseded/proven by basic psychometrics it seems?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 prox…

id say extroversion likely correlates inversely with bullshit detection and its merely quantity over quality.

the last decade of US politics demonstrates just how powerful willingness to produce put strips all other critical skills.

AI exacerbates this and exposes fundamental human heuristic frailty.

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

#54

Post by mym1990 »

psadri wrote: post #19
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…

I don’t think we have spent enough time on the creativity axis. When we solve problems we usually follow a heuristically guided energy efficient path. We just prune a lot of possibilities based on our existing knowledge and experience. Creativity happens when we consciously (or not) go off the beaten path and explore. Most of those explorations are dead ends. But some will yield unexpected connections, patterns etc t…

Machine learning systems do have a component of exploring suboptimal path, otherwise they would never get off a singular track. The creativity issue in regards to AI is not about taking unexplored paths, but doing so in a computationally efficient manner when there are infinite combinations of ideas between domains.

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

#55

Post by rznicolet »

spongebobstoes wrote: post #37
Jtarii wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is two different types of learning people are talking about. The first type happens when you are enthusiastically engaged in a topic, which LLMs will likely enhance. The second type happens as a by-product of solving a, perhaps deeply uncomfortably, difficult problem. This is what people are talking about when they say LLMs will hamper human cognition. Instead of sitting there for an hour and struggling, people…

it's an interesting point. is it worthwhile to struggle through an incidental task that has been solved before? we all stand on the shoulders of giants I think in most cases, understanding is the point. we don't expect students to derive general relativity before doing astrophysics. re-invention is only a tool for understanding

Small counterpoint to your analogy, as someone who studied astrophysics: I actually did have a requirement to understand general relativity! Deriving all of it independently from scratch wasn't something we did, but there _were_ derivations involved. And it was definitely worth working through -- it _is_ a good tool for understanding. (I've long since left the field, but I don't regret the work I did.)

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

#56

Post by DrewADesign »

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’re overgeneralizing a smidgeon.

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

#57

Post by abalashov »

Arainach wrote: post #33
CuriouslyC wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 market can remain irrational longer than any of us can remain solvent. The market is not any good at strategic or long-term thinking, particularly if it takes a generation to realize the scope of the damage, as seen by America abandoning its ability to manufacture things in chase of short term profits.

This is exactly the right answer. The supposed "rationality" of capitalism can ruin us before we get a chance to dazzle the world with our contrarian insights.

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

#58

Post by claytongulick »

Nevermark wrote: post #5

Any flattening of discovery due to AI, but will be temporary. We tend to think that obvious potential is the same as realized potential, for new technology. For any specific context, there are generally innumerable smaller adaptations and capability thresholds that have to be crossed. And the price for that journey is often temporary loss off overt productivity.

Richard Sutton apparently disagrees [1]. He argues that it's impossible for anything novel to come from a LLM.

[1] https://youtu.be/kEbVTcncuX0?is=gEMe5zD9sXWD4ONy

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

#60

Post by Retric »

spongebobstoes wrote: post #37
Jtarii wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is two different types of learning people are talking about. The first type happens when you are enthusiastically engaged in a topic, which LLMs will likely enhance. The second type happens as a by-product of solving a, perhaps deeply uncomfortably, difficult problem. This is what people are talking about when they say LLMs will hamper human cognition. Instead of sitting there for an hour and struggling, people…

it's an interesting point. is it worthwhile to struggle through an incidental task that has been solved before? we all stand on the shoulders of giants I think in most cases, understanding is the point. we don't expect students to derive general relativity before doing astrophysics. re-invention is only a tool for understanding

“Understanding” without being able to use that knowledge for anything isn’t useful for getting stuff done.

The flip side is even more interesting. There’s a great number of electrical engineers with significant physics backgrounds who don’t really understand how electricity actually works, but they can still solve useful problems. By understanding I mean they can describe what underlying physical phenomena reactance represents etc.

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