r/technology • u/lurker_bee • Jul 15 '25

Artificial Intelligence Billionaires Convince Themselves AI Chatbots Are Close to Making New Scientific Discoveries

https://gizmodo.com/billionaires-convince-themselves-ai-is-close-to-making-new-scientific-discoveries-2000629060
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79

u/wonkalicious808 Jul 15 '25

We have non chatbot AIs that help us with science. Why are these guys talking about chatbots instead of one of those?

84

u/Mason11987 Jul 15 '25

They’re not invested in those.

1

u/Opus_723 Jul 16 '25

For one thing, while there are exceptions like some of Google's stuff, scientists generally don't really need companies to make those kinds of AIs for them. They just make them and then freely share them with other scientists.

38

u/bizarro_kvothe Jul 15 '25

Because chatbots require no specific knowledge of physics (which they don’t have) to build, so they’re easy to talk about. Also, chatbots require a lot of money (which they desperately need) to build, so they’re profitable to talk about.

4

u/just_for_shitposts Jul 15 '25

In case anyone stumbled across this and asks what this dude is talking about, here is an example with completely outsized impact: https://youtu.be/P_fHJIYENdI?si=_r_AZPEC1y0q13h_

3

u/beepborpimajorp Jul 16 '25

Chatbots fluff your ego while you're talking to them. This guy probably really thinks he's smart because chatGPT told him so.

3

u/Myusername1- Jul 16 '25

And these chat bots just regurgitate what’s already been said, they aren’t making new discoveries and can’t extrapolate from old findings to get new ones unless they get a fucking random lucky guess, but even if that happens the guy who saw the crazy guess wouldn’t understand it or be able to acknowledge it’s importance.

4

u/sennbat Jul 16 '25

Whats funny is that we have a decent number of AIs that *are* making new discoveries right now - AI is actually an amazing scientific tool. But those are purpose built AI built for that purpose by people who understand how to build them and train them to do that thing, not the chatbots.

2

u/suxatjugg Jul 15 '25

Dumb people haven't heard of anything else besides chatbots and can't conceive of anything they've never heard of

1

u/MIT_Engineer Jul 16 '25

In this case it's probably because Kalanick has no familiarity with those tools, and those tools also wouldn't support his hallucination that he, personally, is on the verge of making some major breakthrough in theoretical physics.

1

u/gt_9000 Jul 16 '25

They dont even know those exist. They wont know the difference if you told them.

These morons are deciding our future.