I think current "AI" (i.e. LLMs) is unable to push human knowledge forward, but not because it's constrained by existing human knowledge. It's more like peeking into a very large magic-8 ball, new answers everytime you shake it. Some useful.
That's not a strong reason. Yes, that means ChatGPT isn't good at wholly independently pushing knowledge forward, but a good brainstormer that is right even 10% of the time is an incredible found of knowledge.
It may be able to push human knowledge forward to an extent.
In the past, there was quite a bit of low hanging fruit such that you could have polymaths able to contribute to a wide variety of fields, such as Newton.
But in the past 100 years or so, the problem is there is so much known, it is impossible for any single person to have deep knowledge of everything. e.g. its rare to find a really good mathematician who also has a deep knowledge (beyond intro courses) about say, chemistry.
Would a sufficiently powerful AI / ML model be able to come up with this synthesis across fields?
