Noah Smith Says AI Will Usher a Golden Age of Science; Skeptics Call It 'More Brains'
binarybits · x · 2026-10-30
Noah Smith argues in a new essay that AI can do what even groups of human researchers can't, ending the era of slowing scientific progress documented by studies like Bloom et al. (2020) and John Horgan's 'The End of Science'. Anthropic's Jack Clark cites accelerating progress across scientific fields. Timothy Lee pushes back: AI may just extend the 'throw ever more brains at it' process, keeping progress steady for a while longer rather than contradicting diminishing returns.
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