Ethan Mollick Says AI Could Push Scientists Beyond Predictable Research

What happened

Academics have to invest tremendous effort into a single paper, so we often work on papers that we suspect will yield interesting & significant results. But that also pushes us to predictable work. AI has no such constraints, forcing us to rethink a lot of how science is done.

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The story so far

Ethan Mollick argued that AI could force scientists to rethink how research is done because it does not face the same constraints that steer academics toward predictable work. He said academics invest tremendous effort in a single paper, encouraging them to choose projects they expect to produce interesting and significant results. In his view, that incentive also makes their research more predictable, while AI faces no such constraints.