Independent editorial practice
SourceWhat changed. What can be established.
MindWhat are we thinking about. What follows from it.
AI systems are beginning to connect stages of scientific work that were previously automated separately: literature search, hypothesis generation, experimental planning, data analysis and revision of hypotheses. The strongest demonstrations still keep humans inside the loop, particularly where physical experiments are involved.
If machines can search literature, propose hypotheses, operate instruments, analyse results and write reports, the interesting question is no longer which scientific tasks can be automated. It is whether anything about science is inseparable from human judgment.
Life produced intelligence once, through evolution. Intelligence may eventually reverse the direction of that relationship by deliberately constructing new living systems. If an artificial intelligence participates in that process, the creator of life may itself be something we do not consider alive.