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.

翻译：人工智能在科学领域的加速作用已得到公认，许多学者开始探索其在跨学科合作中的角色。然而，这种影响的具体机制和程度仍不明确。本研究以AlphaFold对结构生物学家的影响为例，探讨人工智能技术如何影响跨学科合作模式。通过分析Scopus数据库中1,247篇与AlphaFold相关的论文及7,700位作者，我们运用文献计量分析和因果推断方法，比较了AlphaFold采用者与非采用者之间的跨学科合作情况。与普遍认为人工智能促进跨学科合作的看法相反，我们的研究发现AlphaFold仅使结构生物学与计算机科学领域的合作增加了0.48%，对其他学科则未产生可测量的影响。具体而言，人工智能因其技术特性会催生与特定学科的跨学科合作需求，但这种需求因技术民主化等因素而被削弱。这些发现表明，仅靠人工智能在弥合学科鸿沟或促进实质性跨学科合作方面的效能有限。