AIs are capable of outperforming humans despite the fact they are created by humans. AIs can play chess and generate images better than any human can. It helps that in areas such as these there are ways to accurately measure success and AIs can experiment trying to improve their measure of success and don't simply have to copy human data. In hard sciences there's usually a metric of success as well, meaning AIs will be able to get better than humans at science and thus will end up making low budget WMDs capable of making humans extinct.
Science is not chess. Science involves making observations then coming up with the chess board itself and testing if that board approximates reality well enough to be useful. A computer can be designed to calculate moves on an 8x8 grid, a very controlled environment that requires no deeper understanding. Science requires actually understanding concepts, which AIs can't do.
LLMs particularly are consensus driven machines. Consensus science is just the status quo.
At best an LLM will end up "coming up" with a new concept by ripping off some actual scientist in an unknown journal which it scraped data from.
If you're talking ML in general, they could design systems based on existing molecular models looking for certain types of new chemicals to synthesize. Ok, but big deal IMHO. Not going to cure cancer or make humans extinct. In fact the funny thing about cancer is (good) doctors have already figured out the cure, people just won't listen. It's not a magic drug , it's a holistic approach with fasting.
AIs are capable of outperforming humans despite the fact they are created by humans. AIs can play chess and generate images better than any human can. It helps that in areas such as these there are ways to accurately measure success and AIs can experiment trying to improve their measure of success and don't simply have to copy human data. In hard sciences there's usually a metric of success as well, meaning AIs will be able to get better than humans at science and thus will end up making low budget WMDs capable of making humans extinct.
Computers beat humans at chess a long time ago.
Science is not chess. Science involves making observations then coming up with the chess board itself and testing if that board approximates reality well enough to be useful. A computer can be designed to calculate moves on an 8x8 grid, a very controlled environment that requires no deeper understanding. Science requires actually understanding concepts, which AIs can't do.
LLMs particularly are consensus driven machines. Consensus science is just the status quo.
At best an LLM will end up "coming up" with a new concept by ripping off some actual scientist in an unknown journal which it scraped data from.
If you're talking ML in general, they could design systems based on existing molecular models looking for certain types of new chemicals to synthesize. Ok, but big deal IMHO. Not going to cure cancer or make humans extinct. In fact the funny thing about cancer is (good) doctors have already figured out the cure, people just won't listen. It's not a magic drug , it's a holistic approach with fasting.