Verification Is Not Knowledge: Science needs more than answers

Re:Verification Is Not Knowledge: Science needs more than an... by My_Name on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @05:37AM (#50363661)

Surely the way forwards is to take the results obtained by brute force with AI, for example that certain conjectures are true or false, then to use that knowledge to further human understanding.

Knowing that something is true or false will at least stop humans wasting time trying to prove or disprove it, and allow them to find a more elegant proof, or investigate the implications of the true/false result.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Verification Is Not Knowledge: Science needs more than an... by piker on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @05:40AM (#50363695)

Maybe but it might also be useless. Knowing a very large number is the product of two very large primes doesn’t at all help the reader to understand factorization, for example.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Verification Is Not Knowledge: Science needs more than an... by Insimwytim on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @06:52AM (#50364338)

  Knowing that something is true or false

Assuming you can trust it

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Verification Is Not Knowledge: Science needs more than an... by colijobles on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @07:18AM (#50364556)

I think so.

Autonomous or human-directed AI agents submit their work to a public repository.

Then the scientific community draws from this pool of results, identifies the important ones, and starts working on adding the results to the greater body of scientific knowledge. This work of interpretation, synthesis and question formation should be recognised and rewarded in peer-reviewed academic journals.

I wrote a blog here talking about it: https://colinocallaghan.com/posts/answers-are-getting-cheape...

[ Parent | on HN ]