They also built a robotic insect wing to test it, so it seems robotics should get at least as much “credit” as AI. You know, inasmuch as it makes any sense to “credit” a tool used by people for a discovery.
And researchers have been ml to analyze data for decades now. It's not a remotely new thing and I think they're purposefully being vague to try and trick people into thinking an LLM did this because it's the big AI buzzword right now.
No part of this article involves AI making independent discoveries.
My reading of this is the opposite.
Although there were competing hypothesis, nobody knew how insect wing hinge mechanisms worked. Now they do, and the fundamental insight was provided via AI.
I think this is both a fundamental discovery, and one we can attribute to the AI, more than the humans involved.
The “insight” provided is useless theory without testing or humans checking it over, so why not credit robotics with this discovery instead of/in addition to AI if you’re hellbent on removing people from the process?