Chemical progress in the age of AI

Abstract It seems fairly uncontroversial that AI is an exemplary case of technological progress. However, it is not as evident that AI constitutes cognitive progress. The purpose of this paper is to examine this issue from the perspective of chemistry. It investigates whether the use of AI in chemistry constitutes cognitive progress (henceforth chemical progress). I claim that, despite public proclamations in favour of AI, it is far from evident that it does and propose that, instead of viewing AI in chemistry as an exemplar of chemical progress, we should view it as a means to promote it. To support this claim, I present the four paradigmatic accounts of cognitive progress that have been developed in the philosophy of science, and apply them so as to understand whether and in what sense AI constitutes progress in chemistry.