A study of artificial intelligence on productivity at a materials research lab found that the bottom third of researchers saw no improvement but top researchers doubled in productivity (as measured by materials discovered, patents, and “downstream product innovation”). The top researchers used AI to offload 57% of idea generation to focus on evaluation of the most promising ones rather than chasing dead ends. This suggests AI multiplies the value of expertise rather than leveling the playing field.
Another interesting angle of the study was the emphasis on idea generation which is counterintuitive to what most people want to use AI for—offloading grunt work. I have a feeling this is related to the subjects of the study being in a more constrained field that makes sense for an AI to be able to reason about faster than a human on comparable “idea tasks”.
Read Artificial Intelligence, Scientific Discovery, and Product Innovation by Aidan Toner-Rodgers.
See also:
- The action is on the edge and being a researcher using newly available tools can lead to new discoveries
- Objective knowledge begins as conjecture and then corrected with criticism