"The Impact of AI on Scientific Research: Balancing Production and Understanding"

Psychologist Molly Crockett and anthropologist Lisa Messeri argue that while AI tools can increase productivity in scientific research, they also pose potential long-term epistemic risks by creating illusions of understanding. They caution against over-reliance on AI tools leading to a limited exploration of hypotheses and a false sense of objectivity. Their concern is that scientific inquiry may become constrained by what AI can and can't do, resulting in a proliferation of papers within AI's capabilities but lacking true understanding of the world's complexity.