Rohan Paul@rohanpaul_ai · X陶哲轩指出，研究过程中存在大量“认知摩擦”——例如验证想法、排除错误路径、将直觉转化为计算等试错环节，占据了主要时间。AI正在将这些摩擦成本降至零，使研究者能更自由地尝试“更疯狂的想法”。推文强调，许多非常规路径并非被证伪，而是被高昂的验证成本所阻碍。AI降低这一成本，让原本因“不便”而被放弃的弱信号得以被审视，这往往是发现的起点。
Terence Tao： "We lived in a world with cognitive friction until very recently， where every task required us to use our brain.
So we didn't really think about it， we just thought this was the cost of doing something intellectual. But now we have AI and the other technologies that can bring these frictions down to zero."
Most research time is not spent having cinematic insights.
It is spent checking cases， chasing references， translating intuition into computation， testing a path， finding it false， and deciding whether the failure taught you anything.
AI changes the cost of that loop.
Terence Tao says that now he can try "crazier things，" and that makes so much difference. Because unconventional ideas are often not rejected by proof， but by inconvenience.