Over the past century, the purpose of scientific practices has undergone a profound transformation, from an intellectual pursuit to a problem-solving enterprise, leading to an increasing risk of path dependency in scientific endeavors. Our research, analyzing 41 million research articles from the past six decades, emphasizes the concern of science lock-in by identifying and measuring two types of innovations in science: complementary and substitutive. Over the past six decades, the fraction of complementary innovation has risen to become the majority, while the fraction of substitutive innovation has declined to become the minority, revealing two different mechanisms of innovation: recombination and substitution. Amidst the increasing knowledge burden for innovation, while current AIs may excel in idea recombination due to their strong memory capabilities, their potential to contribute to the substitution mechanism remains uncertain, as they lack the ability to forget.

翻译：过去一个世纪，科学实践的目的已发生深刻转变，从智力追求演进为问题解决型事业，这导致科学探索面临日益增长的路径依赖风险。我们的研究通过分析过去六十年间4100万篇科研论文，识别并量化了科学中的两种创新类型：互补型创新与替代型创新，从而揭示了科学锁定现象的严重性。在过去六十年中，互补型创新的占比已上升至多数，而替代型创新的占比则下降为少数，这揭示了两种不同的创新机制：重组与替代。在创新所需知识负担日益加重的背景下，当前人工智能凭借其强大的记忆能力或能擅长创意重组，但其对替代机制的贡献潜力仍存疑问——因为它们缺乏遗忘的能力。