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Can AI really change our material world? 发现新材料通常是一个代价高昂且耗时的试错过程。专家表示，在新材料领域，在AI迄今取得的所谓成就中，有一部分被过度炒作。
Compounds produced by the technology challenge our idea of novelty. 6park.com
正如麦当娜(Madonna)所唱的，我们生活在一个物质世界。我们人类以青铜、石器和铁器来命名历史时期。现代社会的运行有赖于新型材料，诸如锂离子电池、太阳能电池。 6park.com 6park.comSo when Google DeepMind researchers claimed in November that its artificial intelligence tool had discovered more than 2mn new crystalline materials, the breakthrough made global headlines. The company presented the results as “an order-of-magnitude expansion in stable materials known to humanity”. 6park.com所以，当谷歌(Google) DeepMind的研究人员在去年11月宣称，其人工智能工具发现了200多万种新型晶体材料时，这一突破立即成了全球头条新闻。该公司形容这项研究成果标志着“人类已知的稳定材料获得了数量级的扩展”。 6park.com 6park.comSeparately, other researchers based in Berkeley simultaneously revealed that their automated laboratory had created 41 novel compounds, cross-referenced with Google DeepMind’s database, in under three weeks. Only the dullest mind could fail to imagine a giddy future: lines of robotic arms fabricating shiny new AI-designed materials to solve grand challenges like clean energy. 6park.com伯克利的另外一些研究人员同时披露，他们的自动实验室只用不到三周的时间就创造出了41种新型化合物。该研究结果与DeepMind的数据库互为参照。只有最愚笨的头脑才想象不出未来会有怎样令人目眩神迷的前景：成排的机器臂不断制造出由AI设计的亮闪闪的新材料，它们将有助于解决清洁能源等方面的重大挑战。 6park.com 6park.comSince the two papers were published in Nature, however, the sparkle has dimmed somewhat. Earlier this month, materials scientists suggested Google DeepMind had overstated its achievement. In March, in a separate critique, chemists cast doubt on whether the 41 compounds claimed by the Berkeley team were novel at all. Both Google DeepMind and the Berkeley team told the FT that they stood by their respective papers. 6park.com然而，自从这两篇论文在《自然》(Nature)期刊上发表以来，它们的光环多少变得暗淡了一些。本月早些时候，一些材料科学家提出，DeepMind夸大了自己的成就。上个月，在另一篇评论文章中，一些化学家质疑该伯克利团队所称的41种化合物是否真的是新物质。DeepMind和伯克利团队均告诉英国《金融时报》，他们坚持各自论文中的说法。 6park.com 6park.comThe controversy comes just as the company’s co-founder, Sir Demis Hassabis, warned of hype and “grifting” in artificial intelligence. The clash shows that, while AI could be transformational, companies and institutions are struggling to tread the delicate boundary between optimism and overselling. 6park.com出现这些争议之际，DeepMind联合创始人德米斯•哈萨比斯爵士(Sir Demis Hassabis)正发出警告，称人工智能领域存在炒作和“欺诈”现象。这场争论表明，尽管AI或许具有变革意义，但企业和机构目前难以把握乐观主义与过度吹捧之间微妙的分界线。 6park.com 6park.comComing up with new materials is usually a costly time-consuming business of trial and error. DeepMind’s AI approach, called Graph Networks for Materials Exploration, or Gnome, is a computational shortcut for one subset of compounds, namely inorganic crystals. It uses existing catalogues of known structures to generate new candidate crystals and applies AI to iterate towards structurally stable compounds. 6park.com发现新材料通常是一个代价高昂且耗时的试错过程。DeepMind所用的AI工具称作“材料探索图形网络”，简称“GNoME”，这是用计算机找到一组叫做无机晶体的化合物的快捷办法。它利用已知结构的现有编目，提出新的候选晶体，并应用AI进行迭代，最终得出结构稳定的化合物。 6park.com 6park.comOf the 2.2mn novel materials uncovered, the company deemed 380,000 stable enough to include in a database. But Anthony Cheetham and Ram Seshadri, from the University of California, Santa Barbara, wrote this month in the journal Chemistry of Materials, that the work showed “scant evidence for compounds that fulfil the trifecta of novelty, credibility and utility”. Cheetham tells me that “AI has a great future in materials science, but . . . [that] some of the accomplishments to date have been overhyped”. 6park.com在所发现的220万种新材料中，该公司认为有38万种足够稳定，可以纳入一个数据库。但加州大学圣芭芭拉分校(University of California, Santa Barbara)的安东尼•奇塔姆(Anthony Cheetham)和拉姆•塞沙德里(Ram Seshadri)本月在《材料化学》(Chemistry Of Materials)期刊上写道，该研究“没有多少证据证明这些化合物同时具有新颖性、可信性和实用性这三种属性”。奇塔姆告诉我，“AI在材料科学领域会有远大未来，但……迄今取得的成就中，有一部分被过度炒作”。 6park.com 6park.comA spokesperson for Google DeepMind said the paper only made claims for novelty and stability, rather than any specific properties, and that the critique seemed to be grounded in differing terminologies. Further research, he added, would shed light on the compounds’ properties. 6park.comDeepMind的一名发言人表示，论文中只说这些化合物具有新颖性和稳定性，而没有提及任何具体特性，相关批评似乎是基于不同的术语。他补充说，进一步的研究将揭示这些化合物的特性。 6park.com 6park.comThe other AI-linked paper drawing criticism in materials science focuses on work done by researchers based at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. They have developed an automated lab that uses AI-guided robots to mix and characterise new compounds. Partly drawing on the Google DeepMind database, the Berkeley team announced its “A-lab” had made 41 novel compounds. 6park.com另一篇与AI相关的材料科学论文也招致了批评，文章主要讲加州大学伯克利分校(University of California, Berkeley)和劳伦斯伯克利国家实验室(Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)的研究人员所做的研究。他们开发了一种自动实验室，使用由AI指导的机器人来混合和确认新化合物。这项研究在一定程度上利用了DeepMind的数据库，该伯克利团队宣布，其“自动实验室”(A-lab)造出了41种新化合物。 6park.com 6park.comBut Robert Palgrave, a chemist at University College London, and fellow Princeton University sceptics argued last month that the Berkeley claim was unwarranted, on two counts: the AI proposed materials that were already known and was later unable to spot that they lacked novelty. Gerbrand Ceder, who leads the Berkeley team, says: “We stand by the results in our paper that the A-lab succeeded in autonomously developing and demonstrating synthesis recipes for compounds for which it had no prior information, which is a remarkable achievement.” 6park.com但伦敦大学学院(University College London)化学家罗伯特•帕尔格雷夫(Robert Palgrave)，以及普林斯顿大学(Princeton University)一些同样持怀疑态度的学者上月提出，该伯克利团队的说法是没有根据的，原因有两点：该AI提出了本就为人们所知的材料，之后又未能发现这些材料缺乏新颖性。该伯克利团队的负责人赫布兰德•塞德(Gerbrand Ceder)表示：“我们仍然坚信我们论文中的结果，即自动实验室能成功地自动开发并演示化合物的合成配方，对于这些化合物，该实验室没有任何早前的信息，这是一个非凡的成就。” 6park.com 6park.comPalgrave concedes that novelty is a subjective term: chips with added salt are still chips, he says, but caramel with added salt is seen by many as different. Novelty in materials, he adds, is generally a matter of consensus by scientists. 6park.com帕尔格雷夫承认，新颖性是一个主观术语：薯条加盐仍是薯条，但焦糖加盐在许多人看来就变得不同了。他补充说，材料的新颖性通常是科学家的共识问题。 6park.comIn other words, this is a culture clash writ large. There is also an inevitable mismatch in quality: early AI footsteps into materials science might be impressive by AI standards, but they are still nowhere near the level of human expertise in the field. 6park.com换句话说，这显然是一场文化冲突。在质量上也难免存在不匹配：AI在材料科学领域的早期足迹以AI标准来看或许很了不起，但它们仍然与人类在该领域的专业水平不可同日而语。 6park.com 6park.comWe don’t know how long that mismatch will last: researchers dream of conjuring up a high-temperature superconductor using a well-framed user prompt. If and when that day comes, we will still be living in a material world — but one not entirely of our own making. 6park.com我们不知道这种不匹配多久才会消失：研究人员梦想通过精心构思的用户提示来发现一种高温超导材料。假如有那么一天，我们还是会生活在一个物质的世界——但那个世界不完全是由我们自己创造的。 6park.com
As Madonna once warbled, we are living in a material world. Our species has named historic periods after bronze, stone and iron. Modern society runs on innovative materials, such as lithium-ion batteries and solar cells. 6park.com
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