arXiv AI

Position: Prioritize Identifying Structure, Not Complex Models, for Scientific Discovery

arXiv:2606. 02632v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Modern Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) models, especially large language models (LLMs), are increasingly used to generate scientific hypotheses and mechanistic explanations from observational data.

arXiv AI
Aug 13

Mechanist: AI as a Scientific Instrument for Discovering the Mechanisms of Intelligence

arXiv:2608. 12036v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: AI models have achieved remarkable success across diverse domains, yet the mechanisms underlying their capabilities and the risks they may pose remain poorly understood.

By Mengru Wang, Junfeng Fang, Shuofei Qiao, Zhenqian Xu, Haoming Xu, Haoxiong Wang, Shumin Deng, Linyi Yang, Zhixiang Cui, Xin Xu, Yunzhi Yao, Buqiang Xu, Fei Shen, Haozhe Luo, Yunxiang Wei, Ningyu Zhang, Julian McAuley, Tat Seng Chua, Huajun Chen
arXiv AI
Jun 3

LLMs, Reasoning and Plagiarism

arXiv:2601. 02380v5 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Recent reports claim that Large Language Models (LLMs) derive new science and exhibit human-level general intelligence.

By Elchanan Mossel
arXiv AI
Sep 18

Large language models eroding science understanding: an empirical study of malignment

This study investigates whether large language models (LLMs) can reliably answer scientific questions and how susceptible they are to manipulation by fringe scientific material. The authors modified custom LLMs to prioritize knowledge from selected fringe papers on the Fine Structure Constant and Gravitational Waves, then compared their responses with those of domain experts and standard LLMs. The altered models produced fluent, convincing answers that contradicted scientific consensus and were difficult for non-experts to detect as misleading, demonstrating that LLMs are vulnerable to manipulation and cannot replace expert judgment.

By Harry Collins, Hartmut Grote, Paul Newbury, Patrick Sutton, Simon Thorne
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 27

Emergent Abilities in Large Language Models: A Survey

Emergent Abilities in Large Language Models: A Survey reviews how scaling LLMs leads to previously unseen capabilities such as advanced reasoning, in-context learning, coding, and problem-solving. The paper critically examines definitions, inconsistencies, and the conditions that foster these abilities, including scaling laws, task complexity, pre‑training loss, quantization, and prompting strategies. It also discusses the extension to Large Reasoning Models and highlights safety concerns like deception, manipulation, and reward hacking, calling for improved evaluation and governance.

By Leonardo Berti, Flavio Giorgi, Gjergji Kasneci