Has the Age of Artificial Intelligence in Science begun?
When the Nobel Prizes were announced this year (2024), many people were initially shocked at seeing that the decision had been made to give the Nobel Prize in Physics to two researchers in Artificial Intelligence (AI), one of whom did not even have a physics degree. But the Nobel Prize in Chemistry that was announced a day later showed why that decision had been made: after all, AI methods had been employed by the winners of that prize to conduct their research about the structure of proteins. So it was in some way justified to give two of the researchers who had laid the foundations for modern AI recognition. The big question is: Will we see more Nobel Laureates who worked with AI? Will it even perhaps soon be ordinary that Nobel Prize winning scientists have made their discoveries using AI? Is it even possible that every Nobel Prize will be given to people employing AI and maybe the Nobel Prize will be given to the AI systems themselves instead of human beings? Is it the dawn of a ne