The Return of the Generalist in the Age of AI
Modern science has been built on specialization. This specialization was necessary and enormously productive. As scientific knowledge expanded during the twentieth century, no individual could master everything. Mathematics, physics, engineering, biology, and medicine each divided into increasingly sophisticated subfields. By the latter part of the twentieth century, becoming a serious researcher often meant spending many years mastering a progressively narrower area of knowledge. This system produced extraordinary scientific achievements. But it also produced fragmentation. In the early twentieth century, the boundaries between scientific disciplines were often more permeable than they are today. It was still possible for an individual scientist to move substantially among mathematics, physics, engineering, and experimental science. As each field became deeper and more technically demanding, however, this became increasingly difficult. By the 1970s and afterward, specialization had be...