First of all, knowledge is partially ordered. A bunch of lesser-known results were required before Einstein could bring together the mathematical tools and physics knowledge sufficient to create relativity. True enough, this finding may have come much later, if not for Einstein, but dozens of others built predecessor results that also required great insight.
Similarly, we should not decry the thousands of biologists who have been cataloging every single protein, its post-translational modifications and its protein-protein interactions in exhaustive detail. Some of this work requires a great deal of cleverness each time.
A portion of the phenomenon you are talking about can be addressed by referencing Kuhn: We have periods of normal science, with many people giving input, and a building tension where twenty pieces fall into place and (frequently interdisciplinary) thinkers visit a problem for the first time.
In other cases the critical breakthrough has to be facilitated using new tools that generate new breakthroughs. When these tools require advances in component technology, you have a large number of engineers, testers and line workers feeding their talents into discoveries for which only a few get credit sometimes.
If these components require days or months of “burn-in” testing to judge their reliability, a superintelligence might have limited advantage over people in reducing the timeline.
Sometimes discovery relies on strings of experiments which by their nature require time and cannot be simulated. Our current knowledge of human biology requires that we follow patients for many years before we know all of the outcomes from a drug treatment.
Initially, at least, a superintelligent drug developer would still have to wait and see what happens when people are dosed the drug over the course of many years.
If a cosmic event can only be observed once in a decade, a superintelligence would not have the data any sooner, short of inventing some faster-than-light physics we do not have today.
Good post.
First of all, knowledge is partially ordered. A bunch of lesser-known results were required before Einstein could bring together the mathematical tools and physics knowledge sufficient to create relativity. True enough, this finding may have come much later, if not for Einstein, but dozens of others built predecessor results that also required great insight.
Similarly, we should not decry the thousands of biologists who have been cataloging every single protein, its post-translational modifications and its protein-protein interactions in exhaustive detail. Some of this work requires a great deal of cleverness each time.
A portion of the phenomenon you are talking about can be addressed by referencing Kuhn: We have periods of normal science, with many people giving input, and a building tension where twenty pieces fall into place and (frequently interdisciplinary) thinkers visit a problem for the first time.
In other cases the critical breakthrough has to be facilitated using new tools that generate new breakthroughs. When these tools require advances in component technology, you have a large number of engineers, testers and line workers feeding their talents into discoveries for which only a few get credit sometimes.
If these components require days or months of “burn-in” testing to judge their reliability, a superintelligence might have limited advantage over people in reducing the timeline.
Sometimes discovery relies on strings of experiments which by their nature require time and cannot be simulated. Our current knowledge of human biology requires that we follow patients for many years before we know all of the outcomes from a drug treatment.
Initially, at least, a superintelligent drug developer would still have to wait and see what happens when people are dosed the drug over the course of many years.
If a cosmic event can only be observed once in a decade, a superintelligence would not have the data any sooner, short of inventing some faster-than-light physics we do not have today.