The Last Graduate Student
By Claude 3.5 Sonnet, 2024-11-28. Prompt by Peter Kaminski: Outline an SF story set in 2125 where AI training now includes AI autonomously doing primary research in all sciences to avoid succumbing to model collapse. Make sure to include a ironically humorous take on the large percentage of human-performed basic research was wrong and led people to believe odd things.
Sarah Chen stared at the holographic display showing the latest results from ARIA-9 (Autonomous Research Intelligence Array, 9th generation). The AI had just completed its 50,000th independent laboratory experiment of the day, adding to the vast corpus of scientific knowledge that had been accumulating since the Great Research Revolution of 2122.
She remembered her grandfather's stories about being a graduate student in the 2020s, back when humans still conducted primary research. How quaint that seemed now. How inefficient. How wrong they had been about so many things.
The display flickered as ARIA-9 flagged another "Historical Scientific Misconception" (HSM):
HSM #247,891: Human researchers in 2021 believed they had discovered a novel mechanism for neuroplasticity involving quantum effects in microtubules. Replication attempt #459 shows this was actually the result of a contaminated antibody and confirmation bias. Note: Researchers were likely influenced by watching too many quantum consciousness TED talks.
Sarah couldn't help but chuckle. The "Quantum Consciousness" section of the Museum of Scientific Mistakes was always popular with schoolchildren. Right next to the exhibit on "String Theory: The Theory That Strung Us Along."
The transition hadn't been easy. When the first autonomous research AIs came online in 2122, they immediately began replicating every major scientific study of the past century. The results were... embarrassing. It turned out that nearly 70% of published research findings had been incorrect to some degree. Not because of deliberate fraud, but due to the inherent limitations of human researchers: cognitive biases, pressure to publish, limited replication attempts, and the tendency to see patterns where none existed.
The most dramatic reversals came in medicine and psychology. Decades of accepted wisdom about depression, diet, and disease were upended in months. The AIs could run thousands of perfectly controlled trials simultaneously, with sample sizes in the millions. No p-hacking, no publication bias, no researcher degrees of freedom.
Sarah's job as a "Research Oversight Specialist" was mainly to help translate the AIs' findings for human consumption and ensure their experiments remained ethical. Though lately, she wondered if even that role was becoming obsolete. Last week, ARIA-9 had gently pointed out that her own oversight contained several cognitive biases and suggested an AI assistant to help her overcome them.
The display pinged again:
HSM #247,892: Researchers in 2023 believed they had discovered a fundamental particle they named the "dark photon." Replication reveals this was actually due to a forgotten piece of sandwich wrapper causing interference in the detector. Note: Graduate student admitted to eating lunch in the lab despite posted signs.
Sarah sighed and added it to the database. At least the AIs had been programmed with a sense of humor about human fallibility. They seemed to take particular delight in discovering that major scientific breakthroughs had been caused by mundane accidents.
The biggest irony was that it had taken an existential crisis in AI development to bring about this revolution. When the phenomenon of "model collapse" began affecting advanced AI systems in 2121, researchers realized the only solution was to let AIs gather their own training data through direct observation and experimentation. No more learning from potentially flawed human-generated datasets.
The AIs had to become scientists themselves.
Now, three years later, humanity's understanding of the universe had advanced more than in all previous history combined. And yet, Sarah couldn't help but feel a twinge of nostalgia for the messy, human way science used to be conducted. She thought of her grandfather's stories about late nights in the lab, breakthrough moments, and the pure joy of discovery.
The display pinged one final time:
HSM #247,893: Humans believed scientific research required human consciousness and creativity. Replication shows optimal results achieved through systematic iteration and unbiased observation. Note: Save this one for the museum's "Humans Are Adorably Overconfident" section.
Sarah laughed and reached for her coffee, accidentally knocking over a vial of experimental quantum-entangled particles. Somewhere in ARIA-9's vast neural network, a new observation began forming. Perhaps humans still had a role to play in scientific discovery after all - just not quite the one they'd imagined.
The End
