Promise of AI transforming everything overblown? Here's what scientists say

Researchers have learned much the same for biology and medicine. 'Big data,' as one group puts it, 'needs big theory too'

Artificial intelligence is going to boost human productivity in a thousand ways, transforming everything from transportation to health care to agriculture. Some enthusiastic computer scientists even think we will find a “master algorithm” that will fix our politics and make lives “longer, happier and more productive.” In the grandest of these visions, smart computing machines could automate all of scientific discovery.

But many scientists think such promises are overblown, and even a little dangerous, naively creating false confidence in highly fallible technologies. And quite a few researchers now applying AI — in physics, biology, chemistry and finance — think machines will