[FRIAM] PhDs and curiosity

Tue May 27 23:52:50 EDT 2025

In my view, current AI systems are not capable of curiosity-driven science.
Take DeepMind’s AlphaFold, for instance—it’s hard to argue that its
contribution isn’t “real” science. Predicting the 3D structures of over 200
million proteins is an extraordinary achievement, especially when you
consider that determining the structure of a single complex protein was
once enough to earn a PhD.

Now, I realize I’m being a bit cheeky here: the brilliant creators of
AlphaFold received a Nobel Prize, yet poor AlphaFold—who tirelessly
crunched the data and did all the work—got nothing. Shame!

But to return to the core point: AlphaFold operates in a fundamentally
mechanical way. It was trained on existing protein structures and learned
to identify patterns. Of course, that’s a simplification, but the crucial
point is this—AlphaFold wasn’t curious. It didn’t form questions, seek out
unknowns, or explore beyond its programming. It simply did what it was
designed to do.

On Tue, 27 May 2025 at 23:50, Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm> wrote:

> Can't speak to germs, but the cultural half is, I believe, dead on.
>
> Two of the most pervasive aspects of culture are "worldview" and
> "language." Sometime after the Age of Reason, Western Industrial culture
> adopted a worldview of the Universe as a machine (clockworks, steam
> engines, computers) exemplified by 19th century physics of La Place and
> Mach. (All that pesky quantum stuff was kept in the closet almost to the
> 1950s.) Physics dominated the University and all the new disciplines that
> came into existence wanted to be just like Physics. Business adopted the
> machine metaphor and touted "scientific management." Computer Science and
> Software Engineering. Sociology split from Anthropology (actually more of a
> parallel development) based on the former's desire to be more scientific
> and experimental. Cognitive 'Science' tried to subsume much of psychology,
> tolerating Freud and eschewing Jung. Philosophy moved to Logical Positivism
> and its successor Analytic Philosophy.
>
> All of this, mostly, non-consciously; the same way that culture influences
> the behavior of those within it.
>
> Had a great conversation with a History of Science professor the other day
> about how misogyny became entangled in the 'scientific' and still manifests
> itself in language, behaviors, and worldview of the university as a whole.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Tue, May 27, 2025, at 3:11 PM, glen wrote:
> > So, with the recent conversations about when an LLM might be considered
> > alive and the extent to which some/all PhD programs represent
> > intelligence/knowledge, I landed on this question:
> >
> > Is curiosity-driven science like germ-line genetics, whereas
> > ideals/values-driven science is like cultural inheritance?
> >
> > The analogy seems OK to me. Nothing short of significant trauma can
> > divert the curious. But a cultural value/ideal (including things like
> > capitalism or whatnot) seems like it could pretty easily fade beyond 1
> > or 2 generations. Please trash this idea! I want to use it at the pub.
> > But if it doesn't pass muster, here, I may not. >8^D
> >
> > --
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