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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

#71

Post by beepbooptheory »

Labo333 wrote: post #6

> “It’s not about the architecture per se,” Evans says. “It’s about the incentives.” It would have been useful to check whether less original work was already getting more citations before AI adoption. That could reflect broader trends and network effects: heavily cited research areas attract more authors optimizing for citations, so high-productivity researchers end up clustering on the same topics.

The actual paper is linked there if you are curious.

But also just thinking about your point for one second: in your mind, how else would they argue for the conclusion if not by checking the trend over time? Like what is the precise implication here?

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

#72

Post by rightbyte »

abalashov wrote: post #57
Arainach wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I hate how that very argument has been used by people riding the tide to rationalize the irrationality. Money talks or something. If you don't like it here why don't you leave etc. It is a grifters goto statement.

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

#73

Post by aborsy »

A new breed of academics has appeared whose jobs is to put their names in every paper possible. Literally, their job is to work on frameworks to buy co-authorship.

They do this in various ways, like establishing paper pipelines, collecting rents on labs and committees, focusing on money layer, using their profiles and citation count to help with acceptance of papers of other people , etc. You talk to them and they can’t explain their papers beyond a superficial introduction.

They collect huge citations, travel and give talk on the winner horses, collect credit, which feeds back into this fraudulent scheme. A scientist used to be a scientist not long ago, not a credit collector.

I wonder if Google could invent a new metric to expose them (weak ratio of first authorship, etc).

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

#76

Post by Nevermark »

claytongulick wrote: post #58
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

Actually:

> its output can be novel or good, but rarely both at the same time.

> rarely

That is not a viewpoint they can't do something useful and new.

With that criteria, he could be talking about anyone.

I find it rare that people critiquing AI today, actually hold people to the same standards. Or are as enthusiastic about referencing ways machines keep surpassing us, as for ways they have not yet, when speaking about limits for progress.

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

#78

Post by sieabahlpark »

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…

[dead]

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

#79

Post by skeledrew »

DrewADesign wrote: post #77
skeledrew wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking from experience and conversations.

So am I. I worked in academia for a couple of decades.

OK cool so you have a far larger sample size than I to generalize from. Can you explain then what're the root cause(s) of the findings in that article?

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

#80

Post by analog31 »

skeledrew wrote: post #67
analog31 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know any scientists? Disclosure: Physicist.

I do, and through conversations have learned that they enjoy what they do and publish patents (they're PhD in industry), but ultimately what they seek is "fame and glory" (literal quote). I was also in academics myself up to the Master's level (research track), and personally had to deal with the politics of getting support for what I wanted to work on; that experience helped to discourage me from going on to a PhD,…

Oddly enough my experience is the opposite. I live in an academic town, and many of my neighbors are scientists. They view the "fame and glory" as something that maybe someone else has a chance of achieving, but not a realistic pursuit for themselves. Pursuit of funding (which now includes suing the Federal Government) is at best stressful drudgework for them.

I work in industry. In that case, nobody who meets me would ever know that I have patents. I would consider them to be a useful add-on for my resume should I ever need one, but it doesn't define me. And what my employer chooses to fund is a matter between consenting adults.

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