Over the past few years, Google has been working to integrate generative AI into every product and initiative possible.
Google Research is now aiming to turn AI into a "co-scientist" by developing a new multi-agent AI system based on Gemini 2.0, designed to assist biomedical researchers in generating new hypotheses and areas of research.
How it works
The AI co-scientist is a chatbot that allows human scientists to input their research goals, ideas, and references to past research, and then generates possible avenues of research. The AI system contains multiple interconnected models that process the input data and access Internet resources to refine the output. This self-improving loop is similar to new reasoning AI models like Gemini Flash Thinking and OpenAI o3.
Limitations
While the AI co-scientist can extrapolate from existing data to make decent suggestions, it doesn’t truly have new ideas or knowledge. Its output is limited to generating research proposals and hypotheses, which can be discussed with the robot in a chatbot interface.
Testing the AI Co-Scientist
Google partnered with several universities to test some of the AI research proposals in the laboratory. The results showed promising results, with the AI suggesting repurposing certain drugs for treating acute myeloid leukemia and treatment for liver fibrosis being worthy of further study.
Conclusion
While the AI co-scientist is not a true co-scientist, it can be a valuable tool for human researchers. By providing a framework for brainstorming and generating new ideas, it can help scientists interpret and contextualize expansive data sets and bodies of research.
FAQs
Q: Can the AI co-scientist truly do science?
A: No, it is a generative AI system that can only extrapolate from existing data.
Q: How does the AI co-scientist work?
A: The AI co-scientist is a chatbot that generates possible avenues of research based on input from human scientists.
Q: Is the AI co-scientist accurate?
A: Google’s AI co-scientist has internal metrics that evaluate its output, and human researchers have reported higher accuracy compared to other AI systems.
Q: Can I use the AI co-scientist?
A: Yes, Google is offering a Trusted Tester program that provides access to the co-scientist UI and API for integration with existing tools.
