That is a very interesting example but it serves very much to illustrate my point: this is latent knowledge, we effectively already have it but we just haven't put 2 and 2 together. Unfortunately AI excels at such problems because it oversees a much larger slice of our knowledge than most individual humans. I've always said that cross domain application of knowledge is the easiest way to make progress and I haven't really seen anything conflicting with that to date.
So while you start off with 'disagreement' in fact it appears we agree far more than we disagree. Yes, it is important that this work is done. But you clearly illustrate that the envelope did not in fact expand. But all the time scientists around the world do in fact expand the envelope of our knowledge and one of my fears is that by undercutting a lot of such knowledge work by putting this digital combine to work on it that we will lose the infrastructure to do the rest. We'll see a lot of progress in a very short time and then we'll find out that because we took away that class of problems that it has become almost impossible to keep the infrastructure, incentive structure and educational paths in place to be able to do the next round.
You see a similar thing happening in software development. All of a sudden it has become a lot harder to start as a career. And lots of people are not even going to try this direction if there is no first rung on the ladder.
So while you start off with 'disagreement' in fact it appears we agree far more than we disagree. Yes, it is important that this work is done. But you clearly illustrate that the envelope did not in fact expand. But all the time scientists around the world do in fact expand the envelope of our knowledge and one of my fears is that by undercutting a lot of such knowledge work by putting this digital combine to work on it that we will lose the infrastructure to do the rest. We'll see a lot of progress in a very short time and then we'll find out that because we took away that class of problems that it has become almost impossible to keep the infrastructure, incentive structure and educational paths in place to be able to do the next round.
You see a similar thing happening in software development. All of a sudden it has become a lot harder to start as a career. And lots of people are not even going to try this direction if there is no first rung on the ladder.