Artificial intelligence models are being used to try to predict the future of artificial intelligence research. Thankfully, none of them say we are due an AI apocalypse. Mario Krenn at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen, Germany, and his colleagues trained an AI model to analyse 143,000 papers published on the arXiv preprint server between 1994 and 2021.

The software was almost 100 per cent right with its predictions, leading scientists to want to ask it more questions about the actual future. Mario Krenn led the research along with colleagues from all over the world. Reports suggest that the number of ML papers doubles every 23 months. One of the reasons behind it is that AI is being leveraged in diverse disciplines like mathematics, statistics, physics, medicine, and biochemistry. This poses a unique challenge of organizing different ideas and understanding new scientific connections.

Their paper says the AI research "indicates a great potential that can be unleashed." Instead of asking AI to predict the end of the world, the researchers hope to ask it questions about science that could aid future studies.

The paper states: "A tool that could suggest new personalized research directions and ideas by taking insights from the scientific literature could significantly accelerate the progress of science. The hope is that AI will be able to aid human scientists in research in the future.

The researchers concluded: "Ultimately, better predictions of new future research directions will be a crucial component of more advanced research suggestion tools."