2025/08/18 by Naixuan Zhao, Zhao, Naixuan, Chunli Wei +5
Decision Sciences · #Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI) #Computers and Society (cs.CY) #Digital Libraries (cs.DL) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Interdisciplinary Research and Collaboration
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2508.13234
openalex publication_date 2025/08/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/09 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
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.