Oxide and Friends AI, Materials, and Fraud with Ben Shindel
9 snips
May 24, 2025 Ben Shindel, a material scientist known for his newsletter, The BS Detector, dives into the festering issues of academic integrity. He reveals the shocking discovery of a fraudulent economics paper claiming AI’s impact on materials research. The conversation spans whimsical critiques of Silicon Valley fraud and the gravity of academic deceit, like a recent MIT scandal. They tackle the fragile nature of reputation in research and the role of AI tools, highlighting both their potential benefits and ethical pitfalls in modern science.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Fabricated Claims in AI Research Paper
- The paper's claims about AI dramatically boosting materials research productivity are highly suspect and likely fabricated.
- The methodology and data representation raised immediate red flags to material scientists familiar with the field.
Implausible Study Design and Results
- The paper described a massive materials science AI trial at an implausibly large company with over 1,000 researchers.
- The study's randomized roll-out, survey methods, and reported findings reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of materials science practice.
Unrealistic Survey Compliance Expectation
- The notion that a company could track detailed day-to-day ideation and construction time for over a thousand PhDs is unrealistic.
- Survey participation and compliance at this scale with such granularity is practically impossible in corporate research environments.