“We’ll Be Arguing for Years Whether Large Language Models Can Make New Scientific Discoveries” by Edward Parker

Edward Parker — June 13, 2025 This post originally appeared on RAND. --- When OpenAI released its newest AI models o3 and o4-mini in April, its president Greg Brockman made an intriguing claim: “These are the first models where top scientists tell us they produce legitimately good and useful novel ideas.” If AI can indeed make scientific discoveries, that would not only have practical impacts for society but would also provide evidence that we've achieved true digital intelligence. But reaching expert consensus on what counts as a “scientific discovery by an AI” may prove more elusive than expected. Ever since OpenAI released ChatGPT in 2022, a public debate has raged about whether the leading large language models (LLMs) are showing “sparks of artificial general intelligence” or are merely “stochastic parrots” or “autocomplete on steroids.” This debate has become repetitive, in part because neither side has offered a compelling definition [...] --- First published: June 13th, 2025 Source: https://aifrontiersmedia.substack.com/p/well-be-arguing-for-years-whether --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.