Current artificial intelligence models from labs like OpenAI are unlikely to lead to major scientific breakthroughs, a tech co-founder said, pouring cold water on some of the hype around the technology and claims by major figures in the field.

The comments by Thomas Wolf, co-founder of $4.5 billion AI startup Hugging Face, are in stake contrast to those by major names in AI including OpenAI boss Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.

When Wolf talks about scientific breakthroughs, he means novel ideas like those at a Nobel Prize level. Examples including Nicolaus Copernicus who theorized the sun was at the center of the universe and other planets move round it.

Wolf explained a couple of issues with chatbots right now. The first is that these products like ChatGPT and others often agree or align with the person prompting it. Think back to if you’ve asked a chatbot a prompt and it will tell you how interesting or great that question is.

The second is that the models underpinning these chatbots are designed to “predict the most likely next token” or “word” in a sentence.

However, he noted two key traits of scientists. The first is that scientists who make major breakthroughs are often contrarian and question what others are saying.

“The scientist is not trying to predict the most likely next word. He’s trying to predict this very novel thing that’s actually surprisingly unlikely, but actually is true,” Wolf said.

The Hugging Face co-founder has been thinking about this topic for the last few months. His interest was sparked after he read an essay penned by Anthropic’s Amodei, who posited that “AI-enabled biology and medicine will allow us to compress the progress that human biologists would have achieved over the next 50-100 years into 5-10 years.”

That got Wolf thinking about the state of AI and how this won’t be possible, in his view, with the current crop of models.

Wolf said that these chatbots and tools will likely be used as a sort of “co-pilot for a scientist” where they are used for research to help the human generate new ideas.

To some extent, this has been happening already. Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold product has helped to analyze protein structures which the company has promised could aid scientists in discovering new drugs.

But there are some new startups that are hoping to take AI one step further into being able to make scientific breakthroughs, including Lila Sciences and FutureHouse.

Taiwan will not accept Washington’s proposal to locally manufacture half the chips it currently supplies to the U.S., the island’s top trade negotiator said.

Speaking to reporters, Cheng Li-chiun, also the country’s vice premier, said on Wednesday that the proposal for a “50-50” split in semiconductor production was not even discussed, as she returned from trade talks in the U.S., according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency.

Cheng said the talks were focused on lowering tariff rates, securing exemptions from tariff stacking — additional duties — and reducing levies on Taiwanese exports. Taiwan currently faces a “reciprocal” tariff rate of 20%.

Washington has held discussions with Taipei about the “50-50” split in semiconductor production, which would cut American reliance on Taiwan, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said last weekend in an interview to NewsNation, adding that currently 95% of the U.S. demand was met via chips produced within Taiwan.  

“My objective, and this administration’s objective, is to get chip manufacturing significantly onshored — we need to make our own chips,” Lutnick said. “The idea that I pitched [Taiwan] was, let’s get to 50-50. We’re producing half, and you’re producing half.” 

U.S. President Donald Trump had also taken aim at the island’s dominance in chips earlier this year, accusing it of “stealing” the U.S.’ chip business.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comments.

Lutnick’s proposal has been condemned by Taiwan’s politicians, with Eric Chu, chairman of the island’s principal opposition party Kuomintang, calling it “an act of exploitation and plunder,” according to the Central News Agency report.

“No one can sell out Taiwan or TSMC, and no one can undermine Taiwan’s silicon shield,” Chu said, referring to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s leader in advanced chip manufacturing.

Taiwan’s critical position in global chips production is believed to have assured the island nation’s defense against direct military action from China, often referred to as the “Silicon Shield” theory.

In his NewsNation interview, Lutnick downplayed the “Silicon Shield,” arguing that Taiwan would be safer with more balanced chip production between Washington and Taipei. Beijing views the democratically governed island of Taiwan as its own territory and has vowed to reclaim it by force if necessary, while Taipei rejects those claims. 

Taiwan People’s Party Chairman Huang Kuo-chang reportedly called Lutnick’s proposal an attempt to “hollow out the foundations of Taiwan’s technology sector.”

NASA is requiring employees involved in Artemis missions with contractors SpaceX and Blue Origin to stay on the job during the government shutdown, CNBC has learned.

Their work will be unpaid during the shutdown furlough, but employees should record their time, NASA Chief Human Capital Officer Kelly Elliott wrote in an email to staffers on Wednesday. NASA employees are expected to receive pay for their work after a reopening.

In a separate memo from Monday, NASA’s acting finance chief, Steve Shinn, laid out details about missions that would be supported during a shutdown.

NASA will continue to support “planned operations” of the International Space Station, as well as any satellite mission that “is in the operations phase,” Shinn wrote. He added that NASA would support “Artemis operations during any funding lapse,” including employees and contractors working on those projects.

Shinn said NASA would furlough around 15,000 people and require around 3,000 staffers to keep working, part time or full time, during the shutdown.

The U.S. government’s shutdown began early Wednesday morning, setting the stage for the furlough of hundreds of thousands of federal workers and the closing of a number of key programs and services. Government employees who are considered “essential,” like Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers and air traffic controllers, are required to continue working.

On its website, NASA describes Artemis as a campaign to “send astronauts to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.” The memos this week didn’t name the contractors associated with the various Artemis missions.

SpaceX, which is helmed by Elon Musk, won major Artemis contracts with its Starship rocket, the tallest and most powerful rocket ever launched. SpaceX has flown its full Starship rocket system on 10 test flights since April 2023, and plans to conduct another on Oct. 13. Its prior Starship test flights included five failures, a partial failure and four successes.

Blue Origin, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, was given another Artemis contract, and work on its lunar lander will also continue during the shutdown, NASA employees told CNBC.

Artemis III, scheduled for 2027, will be the first to involve SpaceX directly. The mission would land two NASA astronauts on the south polar region of the Moon.

Early Artemis missions involved NASA working with Lockheed Martin and Boeing to design, build, analyze and then buy rockets that the agency would own outright. With Artemis II, which is scheduled for early 2026, NASA aims to send four astronauts around the moon without landing before returning to Earth.

And the goal of Artemis IV+ HLS, with SpaceX, is to put astronauts into the first lunar space station, helping NASA and its partners to prepare for an eventual human mission to Mars. Artemis V is expected to involve Blue Origin.

Neither SpaceX nor Blue Origin has finalized the design of their lunar landers, and so far have only built test hardware.

Representatives of NASA, SpaceX and Blue Origin didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. An autoreply from NASA said the agency “is closed due to a lapse in government funding.”

“I am in furlough status; therefore, I am unable to respond to your message at this time,” said the message from Cheryl Warner, news chief in NASA’s communications office.

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