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🔆 How AI is Reshaping Scientific Research
AI helps find natural Ozempic, Einsteins thought experiments and more
Allegra Guinan & Emma G Moller
March 13, 2025
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🗞️ Issue 61 // ⏱️ Read Time: 7 min
Hello 👋
Science has always pushed the boundaries of what humans can discover about our world. AI is transforming scientific research from an exclusively human endeavor into a collaborative partnership between researchers and intelligent systems. Deep research tools are accelerating discovery while raising fundamental questions about the scientific process itself. How will this reshape knowledge creation and the development of scientific expertise?
This week, we're exploring the complex relationship between AI and the scientific method, asking critical questions about what happens when algorithms become our research partners.
In this week's newsletter
What we’re talking about: The evolving role of AI in scientific research, from data analysis to hypothesis generation, and the implications for the future of human scientific endeavor.
How it’s relevant: AI tools are creating both a productivity revolution and an identity crisis in the scientific community. It is reshaping career trajectories, methodologies, and the very nature of discovery.
Why it matters: Science is our principal method for understanding reality. Changes to how we conduct research have profound implications for knowledge creation, scientific progress, and ultimately humanity's ability to address its greatest challenges, from climate change to disease.
Big tech news of the week…
🧬 Natural Ozempic discovery Researchers at Stanford used AI to find a naturally occurring peptide, supressing appetite and leading to weight loss in pigs and mice.
📱 X (formerly Twitter) Cyberattack: DDoS attacks took down the social media platform. These attacks are common, and most modern internet services experience them regularly and must proactively defend themselves.
⚖️ A federal judge has ruled that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is wielding so much power that its records will likely have to be opened to the public under federal law.
The New Scientific Method?
Science with a touch of AI
For centuries, the scientific method has followed a familiar pattern.
This methodical approach has uncovered the laws of physics, enabled medical breakthroughs, and sent humans to the moon. 👩🚀
Some of the latest releases in the world of generative AI include “deep research” products, essentially AI-powered agents designed to conduct in-depth, multi-step research on the Internet. These tools are marketed like a “research assistant that can match a trained analyst, it autonomously searches the web, compiles sources and delivers structured reports.” and to “excel at a range of expert-level tasks—from finance and marketing to product research”. Axios’ Ina Fried compares them to “a promising intern”.
So, what happens when AI enters each of these stages?
Today's research landscape is transforming as AI integrates throughout the research process.
These capabilities offer extraordinary potential for accelerating discovery while raising profound questions about the future of scientific expertise and knowledge creation.
Advice for scientists using AI Deep Research tools
This approach helps researchers develop appropriate trust levels in AI research assistants, avoiding both over-reliance and under-utilization.
"When using an AI Deep Research tool for the first time, you need to review the output with a critical eye: follow every link to make sure things are really cited, read every line for hallucination, etc.
You aren't going to keep that attention to detail long, so get an idea right away. You need to do the work, and you need to decide how much to trust the tool at the start."
Test these tools in areas where you have expertise: "Don't ask it to predict the future (it isn't made for that) but ask it for something analytical and research-y that you know, where you can judge its opinion and the quality of the sources it found."
Ethan Mollick, Professor of Management, Wharton