Thread

1. ryanschaefer · 1790190580 · focus · HN ↗

   I’m confused why AI companies are using agents in-house for this type of research instead of partnering externally.

   I guess the improvement loop is tighter and they have more control over how discoveries can be used for marketing?

   But, in my mind, it begins to feel like they are setting themselves up to be “everything” companies instead of focusing on their core product…

   1. jryle70 · 1790200056 · focus · HN ↗

      I'm confused of why this is a question. First of all everyone is doing something because it benefits them. You and I included. Second of all as long as it's a real discovery, it will be beneficial to us all eventually (after benefiting Anthropic for sure).

      Perhaps you're not on HN long enough, but there have been many posts where someone bemoaned the lack of basic science research by corporations, that IBM and Microsoft were the only a few remaining companies with any science research. Guess what? they do it for their own benefits as well.

      1. ryanschaefer · 1790201115 · focus · HN ↗

         What area of basic research are they bemoaning?

         Because as I see it, there are a lot of already established labs that could take research like this a lot further with the help of AI instead of just throwing more agents at the problem.

         That’s my confusion around this topic. Does the strategy change when you can throw a bonkers amount of compute at the problem with fewer guardrails?

         1. solenoid0937 · 1790217982 · focus · HN ↗

            Because you're not understanding the goal. The goal isn't to assist humans in making the discovery. The goal is to develop a system that can autonomously make the discoveries, as this is way more scalable.

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