Comment Section for MIT disavows doctoral student paper on AI's productivity benefits | TechCrunch

This TechCrunch article discusses the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) recent dismissal of a doctoral student paper on the productivity benefits of artificial intelligence (AI). The paper, "Artificial Intelligence, Scientific Discovery, and Product Innovation," was authored by a doctoral student and suggested that introducing an AI tool in a large materials science lab resulted in more discoveries and patent filings, but decreased researchers' job satisfaction. Initially applauded by MIT economists Daron Acemoglu and David Autor, the paper is now disavowed due to concerns about data reliability and research authenticity. A computer scientist raised issues about the paper, prompting an internal review at MIT. The university has asked for the paper to be withdrawn from The Quarterly Journal of Economics and the preprint website arXiv, and the paper's author, Aidan Toner-Rodgers, is no longer affiliated with MIT.