Çubuk: Deep expertise optimizing existing materials hinders discovering radically different ones
Doğuş Çubuk (Doj Chubuk) · Can AI revolutionize materials discovery? · Sep 19, 2024 · at 8:48
Google DeepMind research scientist Doğuş Çubuk explains the trade-off between local optimization and radical discovery across both physical sciences and machine learning.
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“The better you know a system, The more you can continue optimizing the system, but it doesn't necessarily mean that knowledge will help you discover something different. And I think this is probably why a lot of important discoveries are serendipitous, because, like, let's say you're in a company, and your company is really an expert on material A. So you're right, like you've developed so many important sets of expertise that you can really optimize A, but most likely those skills don't help you discover C, which is very different, or even B.”
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