Dr. Josephson interviewed on Quirks & Quarks

Humans are no longer the only ones capable of making scientific discoveries. Kepler's third law of planetary motion has been re-discovered centuries after it was first described – but this time, an artificial intelligence system is taking the credit.

Dubbed AI-Descartes, this "AI scientist" was developed by a team of researchers from IBM Research, Samsung AI, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).

"I think scientists have so many different problems to solve. And if we solve them faster with AI, they just open up brand new questions for us to go after next," Tyler Josephson told Quirks & Quarks host Bob McDonald. 

Artist's concept of our solar system showing a sense of scale and distance.

The planets and dwarf planet Pluto are shown in their correct order of distance from the sun, their correct relative sizes and their correct relative orbital distances. The sizes of the bodies are greatly exaggerated relative to the orbital distances.

The faint rings of Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune are not shown. Eris, Haumea and Makemake do not appear in the illustration owing to their highly tilted orbits. The dwarf planet Ceres is not shown separately; it resides in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.