Enter "Co-Scientist"

The "augment rather than replace" frame that I've discussed here seems to be getting some traction. Stanford's explicit use of the word "augment" in their statement of goals for AI is significant. Microsoft's Copilot for coding is the most powerful and widespread example of a large language model partnering with an expert human for co-discovery and co-creation.

 We’re launching a new AI system for scientists. Today Google is launching an AI co-scientist, a new AI system built on Gemini 2.0 designed to aid scientists in creating novel hypotheses and research plans. Researchers can specify a research goal — for example, to better understand the spread of a disease-causing microbe — using natural language, and the AI co-scientist will propose testable hypotheses, along with a summary of relevant published literature and a possible experimental approach. AI co-scientist is a collaborative tool to help experts gather research and refine their work — it's not meant to automate the scientific process. We’re excited to see how researchers will use the system for their research. Scientists who are part of our Trusted Tester Program will have early access to AI co-scientist — you can learn more about how this new tool works on the Google Research blog.

When it comes to the conversational interface part of human-llm interaction, this is a good statement of an idea that's been surfacing lately: the return of oral culture.