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?
Ah so it looks like “independent ai discoveries” in research might be the new “no cgi/special effects” in films, like just acknowledge all the people who worked day and night to make the end result, it doesn’t detract from the final result if it was a group effort.
I’m thinking OP clearly didn’t read/understand the article or it’s deliberately sensationalising the paper, yet weirdly simultaneously denigrating it as basic science.
Gotta fuel the hype train. Hard to pretend ai is perpetually 5 months from global dominion (so give us all your money now now now) if you don't do shit like this.
A lot of talk of AI tends to revolve around who is doing best in league tables and Silicon Valley chatter, meanwhile the truly significant is happening elsewhere. AI making independent breakthroughs like this has far greater long-term significance.
There is nothing remotely independent about it. Researchers used ml to process the data, but setting that all up is very intentional and manually done by humans, and has been used for decades now. I don't know if you edited the title or if they did, but either way you didn't read the article.