AI Will Help Scientists Ask More Powerful Questions

Scientific advances over the last several centuries have not only resulted in a greater understanding of the universe; they've raised the standard of living for many people across the globe. However, there are still massive challenges we're ill equipped to meet, as evidenced by climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, which have shown that we are yet to understand the complexity of nature. In order to address the scale of problems now facing humanity, radical solutions are needed--and scientific breakthroughs will be central to this process. Artificial intelligence promises to accelerate fundamental discoveries by deepening the nature of questions researchers can ask. In his visionary essay "As We May Think," published in 1945, the prominent American engineer and science advocate Vannevar Bush predicted that people would soon need to rely on external devices to augment their minds.