How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Science
Like many AI researchers, Nord is also concerned about the impenetrability of results produced by neural networks; often, a system delivers an answer without offering a clear picture of how that result was obtained. Quantum physicists like Roger Melko of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and the University of Waterloo in Ontario have used neural networks to solve some of the toughest and most important problems in that field, such as how to represent the mathematical “wave function” describing a many-particle system. Whether Schawinski is right in claiming that he’s found a “third way” of doing science, or whether, as Hogg says, it’s merely traditional observation and data analysis “on steroids,” it’s clear AI is changing the flavor of scientific discovery, and it’s certainly accelerating it.
Source: www.quantamagazine.org