The Role of AI in Facilitating Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Evidence from AlphaFold

TL;DR

This study investigates how AlphaFold, an AI tool, influences interdisciplinary collaboration in science, finding limited impact beyond structural biology and highlighting the complex factors affecting AI's role in fostering cross-disciplinary work.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence that AlphaFold's influence on interdisciplinary collaboration is minimal, challenging assumptions about AI's broad facilitative role in science.

Findings

AlphaFold increased structural biology-computer science collaborations by 0.48%.

No significant effect on other scientific disciplines.

Technological democratization weakens AI-driven interdisciplinary demand.

Abstract

The acceleration of artificial intelligence (AI) in science is recognized and many scholars have begun to explore its role in interdisciplinary collaboration. However, the mechanisms and extent of this impact are still unclear. This study, using AlphaFold's impact on structural biologists, examines how AI technologies influence interdisciplinary collaborative patterns. By analyzing 1,247 AlphaFold-related papers and 7,700 authors from Scopus, we employ bibliometric analysis and causal inference to compare interdisciplinary collaboration between AlphaFold adopters and non-adopters. Contrary to the widespread belief that AI facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration, our findings show that AlphaFold increased structural biology-computer science collaborations by just 0.48%, with no measurable effect on other disciplines. Specifically, AI creates interdisciplinary collaboration demands with specific disciplines due to its technical characteristics, but this demand is weakened by technological democratization and other factors. These findings demonstrate that artificial intelligence (AI) alone has limited efficacy in bridging disciplinary divides or fostering meaningful interdisciplinary collaboration.