After42: experts rate 45 of AI's 135 proposed research questions genuinely interesting
james_y_zou · x · 2026-11-01
Quoted by jameszou, Fan Nie's After42 project asks whether AI can propose research questions experts find genuinely interesting, not just solve existing ones. Key findings:
- Of 135 final questions spanning math, statistics, theoretical CS, and physics, experts judged 45 genuinely interesting, with wide variation across subfields.
- Core method: develop questions by trying to solve them.
- Model judges' top picks align with expert consensus but don't consistently capture individual experts' preferences.
- Experiment data has been released.
The work responds to the question of what makes a good research problem, spanning aesthetics to education.
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