"Consistent with the general trend of incorporating artificial intelligence into nearly every field, researchers and politicians are increasingly using AI models trained on scientific data to infer answers to scientific questions. But can AI ultimately replace scientists? The Trump administration signed an executive order on Nov. 24, 2025, that announced the Genesis Mission, an initiative to build and train a series of AI agents on federal scientific datasets "to test new hypotheses, automate research workflows, and accelerate scientific breakthroughs.""
"So far, the accomplishments of these so-called AI scientists have been mixed. On the one hand, AI systems can process vast datasets and detect subtle correlations that humans are unable to detect. On the other hand, their lack of commonsense reasoning can result in unrealistic or irrelevant experimental recommendations. While AI can assist in tasks that are part of the scientific process, it is still far away from automating science - and may never be able to."
AI models trained on scientific datasets can process vast amounts of data, detect subtle correlations, and accelerate parts of research such as protein-structure prediction. Government initiatives like the Genesis Mission aim to train AI agents to test hypotheses, automate workflows, and speed scientific breakthroughs. Current AI accomplishments are mixed: strengths in data processing contrast with weaknesses in commonsense reasoning and unrealistic experimental recommendations. AI systems depend on human scientists to create, curate, and interpret training data and simulated environments. Landmark tools such as AlphaFold demonstrate powerful inference from data but still require human-designed datasets and oversight. Full automation of science remains distant and uncertain.
Read at The Conversation
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]