AI in Science: Hype or Help? Incentives Drive Adoption Over Impact
Summary
While AI has enabled some scientific breakthroughs, its widespread adoption in research is driven more by incentives for scientists than proven benefits, leading to overoptimistic claims and lack of transparency about limitations and negative results.
Key Points
- AI adoption in scientific research is rising rapidly due to incentives for scientists rather than benefits to science itself
- Published AI research in science suffers from survivorship bias and overoptimistic conclusions due to lack of negative results and methodological pitfalls
- While AI has achieved some breakthroughs, its overall potential to accelerate science has likely been exaggerated based on the author's experience