A Third Path for Scientists: Boosting AI's Scientific Capabilities at Frontier Labs
kenbwork · x · 2026-11-15
Scientist Zane Koch argues that until recently scientists had only two options: academia (freedom but scarce resources and low pay) or industry (well-resourced and well-paid, but confined to narrow research serving shareholder value). A third path has emerged: working to improve AI's scientific capabilities. It combines the best of both—freedom to pursue your own research interests, extremely high leverage by accelerating every scientist who uses AI, and far better pay than academia. Koch notes this path exists because frontier labs genuinely mean their missions like "cure all disease in 5 years."
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