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Using AI to cure cancer or fight climate change makes as much sense as using neuroscience to figure out AI. It's all yak shaving. If your goal is to "solve X" just go solve X, don't try to solve Y then use Y to solve X.

6/4/26, 10:51 am2 reposts32 likes

Willi

@willigo09.bsky.social

6 Apr

Indeed. "Fall in love with the problem not the solution" can't be repeated often enough. AI might play a role in solving X but the goal should not be "use AI to solve X" in my view.

David A. Markowitz

@davidamarkowitz.bsky.social

6 Apr

What about using AI to control a fusion plasma? 😉 In all these domains, there are plenty of engineering sub-problems that are fertile ground for cross-disciplinary collaboration. But I do agree that saying "we'll use X to solve ALL of field Y" is too vainglorious to have any credibility.

David Pfau

@davidpfau.com

6 Apr

Ah, you haven't heard the news. Ask Sean.

Cian O'Donnell

@cianodonnell.bsky.social

6 Apr

sometimes you need to use Y in order to get funding to solve X though

deen

@sir-deenicus.bsky.social

6 Apr

I guess your point is about generalist AI, since any cure or process for generating cures (eg against cancer) will need computer programs--some of which can be categorized as AI--to be implemented. But I think implicit to the AGI-ish stance is an implicit belief that we're not smart enough to solve

deen

@sir-deenicus.bsky.social

6 Apr

Not smart enough to solve certain hard problems on our own.

Fylaktis Fylaktou

@fylaktis.bsky.social

7 Apr

I see the point, but my experience says otherwise. I study the gut-brain axis and use ML to classify electrical signals the gut sends to the brain. Without computational tools, that signal is just noise. AI is a new lens that sheds a new perspective into a problem.