Grand Unification of Science by AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI), a hyped up term used by small companies to raise capital and large companies to keep their shareholders guessing, may have an indirect and unexpected benefit for humanity. As AI, basically the use of data in decisions and analytics, penetrate all scientific disciplines, scientists may realize that there is no demarkation among disciplines but rather they are all the same, a process by which old hypotheses can be tested and new ones formed. Accumulation of Silicon and the reckless use of precious energy, may after all provide benefits with long lasting effects on innovation.

So, it is not the stochastic parrot that can guess the next word in a sequence that’s going to be useful. But rather, what will make a difference is driving scientific questions to a common framework with shareable mathematical techniques to advance the respective fields. There is no Physics, Biology, Chemistry or Economics, everything converges to data and mathematics. Understanding the accelerated expansion of the universe, metastatic cancer progression, materials with hitherto unknown properties, and the optimal distribution of limited resources across the globe are all the same problem, mathematically. AI, thus, is a fundamental understanding that everything is driven by data.

As companies and start-ups waste massive resources around the world, chasing agents that will behave like humans, scientific disciplines are settling down to sharing techniques to advance their respective fields. AI becomes a foundational technology for research and innovation and it will fail trying to replicate humans. We already have over 8 billion of them and most can’t live peacefully. Replicating a human, thus, is a misguided goal, concocted by technologists who spend most of their time in dark rooms with windows tightly closed.

As the AI enthusiasts fret over the impending “singularity,” it is important to recognize that humans are not smart enough to create something that surpass many millions of years of development.