Article mentions that if students present these designs, they’d be dismissed as ridiculously. But when AI present them, they’re taken seriously.
I wonder how many times these designes were dismissed because humans who think out of the box too much are dismissed. It seems that students are encouraged NOT to do so, severely limiting how far out they can explore.
Across basically all fields you have to first show that you can think inside the box before you are allowed to bring out-of-the-box ideas. Once you have shown that you mastered the craft and understood the rules you can get creative, but before that creativity is rarely valued. Doesn't matter if you are an academic or an artist, the same rules apply
I'm guessing AI gets the benefit of the doubt here because its ideas will be interesting and publishable no matter the outcome
You can do all the 'proving your chops' and in-the-box thinking in the world and still get ostracized for your creative insight.
* Semmelweis - medicine. Demonstrated textbook obstetric technique at Vienna General Hospital, then produced statistically impeccable data showing that hand-washing slashed puerperal fever mortality. Colleagues drove him out of the profession, and he died in an asylum.
* Barbara McClintock - genetics. Member of the National Academy, meticulous corn geneticist; her discovery of “jumping genes” (transposons) was ignored for 30 years and derided as “mysticism.”
* Georg Cantor - mathematics. Earned a Ph.D. and published dozens of orthodox papers before writing on transfinite numbers; was then declared “a corrupter of youth”. Career was blocked, contributing to a breakdown.
* Douglas Engelbart - computer science. Published conventional reports for years. When he presented the mouse, hypertext, and videoconferencing in “The Mother of All Demos” (1968), ARPA funding was slashed and he was professionally sidelined for the next twenty years.
Then you've got Stravinsky, Van Gogh, Caravaggio, James Joyce; all who displayed perfect 'classical' techniques before doing their own thing.
In economics you've got Joan Robinson and Elinor Ostrom.
And let's not forget Galileo. I'd even put Assange in this list.
So, "following the rules" before attempting to revolutionize your field doesn't seem to actually help all that much. This is a major problem, consistent across many centuries and cultures, which ought to be recognized more.
Its a cost risk analysis. We have tried letting studdents do whatever and most of the time it went nowhere, so we ended up with a more rational system (with many caveats) where experiments are proposed and people with good insights and sense of whether it might even work approve it before running it.
AI is going through the wild phase were people are allowing it to test, as soon as the limits are understood the framework of limitations and the rational system built around will inevitably happen.
I wonder how many times these designes were dismissed because humans who think out of the box too much are dismissed. It seems that students are encouraged NOT to do so, severely limiting how far out they can explore.