Displacing Science

Over the past century, the focus of scientific practices has shifted from purely intellectual exploration to problem-solving, leading to uneven development in scientific knowledge. Our analysis of 41 million research articles over the past six decades reveals this trend of uneven development, with atypical papers representing complementary innovation becoming the majority and displacement papers representing substitutive innovation decreasing to the minority. While AI can enhance human memory capacity, it may not necessarily accelerate progress in canonical concepts without changing the agenda of science and its organization.