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Artificial Intelligence, Scientific Discovery, and Product Innovation was the most cited empirical claim of 2024 about what AI does to research productivity: a materials lab given an AI tool discovered more materials and filed more patents, while the scientists enjoyed the work less. It was praised by two Nobel laureates in economics, Daron Acemoglu and David Autor, who are quoted here withdrawing that support. A computer scientist raised concerns with them in January 2025; MIT ran an internal review and in May said the paper should be withdrawn from public discourse, and that its author was no longer at MIT. Nobody has published evidence that the paper was written by AI. It is filed here because the unverified claim in question was a claim about AI, and it travelled further than any of the studies that were checked.
Daron Acemoglu and David Autor, MIT, in TechCrunch
the two economists said they now have "no confidence in the provenance, reliability or validity of the data and in the veracity of the research."
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