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Comment by dahart | Hacker News Reader

> Scientists who adopt AI gain productivity and visibility: On average, they publish three times as many papers, receive nearly five times as many citations, and become team leaders a year or two earlier than those who do not.

To me this effect doesn’t seem to reflect on AI very much, it seems to reflect on humans. Like maybe this is more evidence of the Babble Hypothesis and the incentives in research than AI, no?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babble_hypothesis

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This is superseded/proven by basic psychometrics it seems? Big Five Extraversion is roughly equivalent to "social dominance", how well an individual implements themselves in a social setting. "Extroverts" or people high in the trait are of course more likely to see progression on the basis they are superior at presenting value in a social setting in terms of social ability, which is often (falsely) accepted as a proxy for overall competence. This is why they end up running orgs as well

id say extroversion likely correlates inversely with bullshit detection and its merely quantity over quality.

the last decade of US politics demonstrates just how powerful willingness to produce put strips all other critical skills.

AI exacerbates this and exposes fundamental human heuristic frailty.

"Perhaps, says Evans. But he doesn’t think that the problem is baked into the algorithmic design of AI. More than technical integration, he argues, what may matter most is overhauling the reward structures that shape what scientists choose to work on in the first place.

'It’s not about the architecture per se,' Evans says. 'It’s about the incentives.'"

If we’re just spitballing, it certainly could be that, but it’s also obvious that publishing papers can help communicate your existing work. AI can definitely help at that, and even great work needs to be communicated.

If this same article had said “adoption of word processors over typewriters increases publishing”, would we still be thinking of the babble hypothesis?

It amplifies "publish or perish", which inherently causes scientists to rehash earlier findings just to be able to meet publishing quota.

Given the way in which AI is currently used in publishing, it is altogether way too early to label it counterproductive in the research creativity department.

You reckon there could be any selection bias? Some means justify the ends reasoning.

I've always thought the bigger dangerous of ai is drowning the actual talented people in a sea of slop.

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