What Happens When AI Takes Over Science?

Artificial intelligence is changing the way some scientists conduct research

leading to new discoveries on accelerated timetables.

Neuroscientists at Meta and elsewhere, for instance

are turning artificial neural networks trained to ‘see’ photographs or ‘read’

text into hypotheses for how the brain processes both images and language

Biologists are using AI trained on genetic data to study rare diseases

improve immunotherapies, and better understand SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern.”

But these advances have a drawback. AI, through its inhuman ability to process

and find connections between huge quantities of data

is also obfuscating how these breakthroughs happen, by producing results without explanation.