Related papers: Science and Technology Advance through Surprise
Innovation or the creation and diffusion of new material, social and cultural things in society has been widely studied in sociology and across the social sciences, with investigations sufficiently diverse and dispersed to make them…
The emergence of "big data" offers unprecedented opportunities for not only accelerating scientific advances but also enabling new modes of discovery. Scientific progress in many disciplines is increasingly enabled by our ability to examine…
We consider inventions as novel combinations of existing technological capabilities. Patent data allow us to explicitly identify such combinatorial processes in invention activities. Unconsidered in the previous research, not every new…
Machine learning and deep learning techniques are contributing much to the advancement of science. Their powerful predictive capabilities appear in numerous disciplines, including chaotic dynamics, but they miss understanding. The main…
Human creativity is the ultimate driving force behind scientific progress. While the building blocks of innovations are often embodied in existing knowledge, it is creativity that blends seemingly disparate ideas. Existing studies have made…
Despite our familiarity with specific technologies, the origin of new technologies remains mysterious. Are new technologies made from scratch, or are they built up recursively from new combinations of existing technologies? To answer this,…
Artificial intelligence (AI) models trained on published scientific findings have been used to invent valuable materials and targeted therapies, but they typically ignore the human scientists who continually alter the landscape of…
Data-driven artificial intelligence models fed with published scientific findings have been used to create powerful prediction engines for scientific and technological advance, such as the discovery of novel materials with desired…
The combination of diverse, pre-existing knowledge is a common explanation for scientific breakthroughs. However, a paradox exists: while scientific output and the potential for such recombination have grown exponentially, the rate of…
The history of science reveals that major discoveries are not predictable. Naively, one might conclude therefore that it is not possible to artificially cultivate an environment that promotes discoveries. I suggest instead that open…
The Science of Science (SoS) explores the mechanisms underlying scientific discovery, and offers valuable insights for enhancing scientific efficiency and fostering innovation. Traditional approaches often rely on simplistic assumptions and…
This paper studies the impact of artificial intelligence on innovation, exploiting the randomized introduction of a new materials discovery technology to 1,018 scientists in the R&D lab of a large U.S. firm. AI-assisted researchers discover…
The growth of science and technology is a recombinative process, wherein new discoveries and inventions are built from prior knowledge. Yet relatively little is known about the manner in which scientific and technological knowledge develop…
Recent years have seen the dramatic rise of the usage of AI algorithms in pure mathematics and fundamental sciences such as theoretical physics. This is perhaps counter-intuitive since mathematical sciences require the rigorous definitions,…
A general theory of innovation and progress in human society is outlined, based on the combat between two opposite forces (conservatism/inertia and speculative herding "bubble" behavior). We contend that human affairs are characterized by…
Scientific prizes are among the greatest recognition a scientist receives from their peers and arguably shape the direction of a field by conferring credibility to persons, ideas, and disciplines, providing financial rewards, and promoting…
It has been suggested that innovations occur mainly by combination: the more inventions accumulate, the higher the probability that new inventions are obtained from previous designs. Additionally, it has been conjectured that the…
The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence has led to expectations of transformative impact on science, yet current systems remain fundamentally limited in enabling genuine scientific discovery. This perspective contends that progress…
Without the ability to estimate and benchmark AI capability advancements, organizations are left to respond to each change reactively, impeding their ability to build viable mid and long-term strategies. This paper explores the recent…
Theories of scientific and technological change view discovery and invention as endogenous processes, wherein prior accumulated knowledge enables future progress by allowing researchers to, in Newton's words, "stand on the shoulders of…