Broad Institute's science sandboxes expose where AI agents reason vs just optimize
anshulkundaje · x · 2026-09-03
- Arya Rao et al. (Broad Institute, with Eric Lander and Pardis Sabeti) released a preprint introducing "science sandboxes," a framework measuring whether AI agents truly learn the rules behind scientific systems.
- Agents run repeated cycles of experimentation, feedback, and hypothesis revision, spanning "wet" physical experiments, "damp" predictive models, and "dry" invented rules.
- Instantiated in regulatory genomics and protein fitness prediction; frontier agents often optimized metrics without understanding underlying rules, and their scientific reasoning degraded on systems outside familiar biological priors.
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