AI technologies have recently shown remarkable capabilities in various scientific fields, such as drug discovery, medicine, climate modeling, and archaeology, primarily through their pattern recognition abilities. They can also generate hypotheses and suggest new research directions. While acknowledging AI’s potential to aid in scientific breakthroughs, the paper shows that current AI models do not meet the criteria for making independent scientific discoveries. Discovery is an epistemic achievement that requires a level of competence and self-reflectivity that AI does not yet possess.

Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 1, January 2022.