{"id":782193,"date":"2026-07-24T17:07:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T17:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/782193\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T17:07:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T17:07:22","slug":"the-tech-broification-of-american-science-has-officially-begun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/782193\/","title":{"rendered":"The tech-broification of American science has officially begun"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration unveiled the first \u201cGenesis Mission\u201d grants<\/a> on Thursday, directing $5 billion toward hundreds of AI-driven science projects in an effort the White House has described<\/a> as \u201ccomparable in urgency and ambition to the Manhattan Project.\u201d At roughly the same time, Trump\u2019s science adviser Michael Kratsios was on Capitol Hill<\/a> selling lawmakers on an equally grandiose promise: \u201cA New Golden Age<\/a>\u201d of American science, one that would prioritize artificial intelligence, robotics, and nuclear energy and downplay life sciences.<\/p>\n

Taken together, the two announcements offer the clearest picture yet of how Donald Trump wants to remake American science. They mark the latest front in a wider war on the research establishment<\/a> \u2014 one that has worked to suppress \u201cwoke\u201d or DEI projects, threatened funding<\/a> for universities, researchers, and projects on ideological grounds, curtailed the flow of international students<\/a> and researchers<\/a>, and handed unprecedented control over federal funding to political appointees<\/a>. The result has been the gradual, systemic dismantling of the long-established norms and institutions that, for all their flaws, helped turn the United States into the world\u2019s scientific superpower.<\/p>\n

Researchers say the vision is ill-conceived, contradictory, and less a blueprint for scientific renewal than a politicized power grab that fundamentally misunderstands how science works. It treats public research more like a Silicon Valley startup than a public good, privileging measurable returns and speed over the slow, uncertain, and unpredictable work that has produced some of history\u2019s most consequential discoveries. Far from reviving US science, they warn, the agenda could prove disastrous for American research.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe may well end up in the situation where AI will have a few major insights buried under mountains of slop, and the number of people with the experience and knowledge to tell the two apart may rapidly dwindle.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Genesis Mission<\/a> grants span fields<\/a> ranging from drug discovery and biomedical science to energy, advanced materials, and robotics. The 278 projects, reportedly<\/a> selected from over 5,000 applications, all share a common premise: leveraging AI to accelerate scientific discovery. The Energy Department, which led this round of funding, said the project will unite national laboratories, industry, and academia to pursue \u201cbreakthroughs in energy dominance, discovery science, and national security.\u201d Technology companies including<\/a> Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI<\/a> are also contributing millions of dollars in compute, AI credits, and other support to the initiative.<\/p>\n

Kratsios explicitly linked<\/a> the program to the administration\u2019s broader science agenda, calling Genesis Mission \u201cthe culmination of the reforms suggested in\u201d its \u201cGolden Age\u201d manifesto<\/a>. Styled as a modern successor to Vannevar Bush\u2019s 1945 policy report \u201cScience, the Endless Frontier,\u201d which shaped much of the postwar system of federal research funding, the lengthy document proposes shifting support away from institutions and toward individual scientists, while giving private companies a larger role in directing and conducting research, and political appointees more power to block grants they disagree with. AI features heavily, both as a tool for scientists and as an engine for discovery itself, and Kratsios encouraged government funds to increasingly go to AI use and individual researchers, rather than universities, traditional hubs of scholarship and research.<\/p>\n

More broadly, the manifesto favors a goal-oriented and results-driven approach that resembles a Silicon Valley startup more than traditional scientific enterprise. Venture capital and startup culture are built around identifying promising people, projects, and ideas, setting clear goals with measurable targets, and moving quickly, iterating constantly, and cutting work that seems unlikely to deliver results. Science operates differently. Basic research can take years or decades before its importance or practical implications become apparent and it requires a system capable of supporting work of uncertain, even seemingly dubious, value. Its outcomes cannot always be predicted, and some of the most important discoveries emerge serendipitously from research pursuing entirely different questions.<\/p>\n

A science funding system needs to account for those differences, said Claes de Vreese, a professor of AI and society at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. \u201cYou cannot use venture capital to force breakthroughs while virtually already selling the patent.\u201d<\/p>\n

That model also stands in stark contrast to Bush\u2019s championing of open-ended basic research pursued without an eye for immediate dividends, on the grounds that such work would ultimately yield applied breakthroughs. The scientific system built around that principle is what helped turn the United States into the world\u2019s research superpower. Even so, it is not the first time the Trump administration has invoked Bush\u2019s legacy<\/a> to sell policies that would dismantle the system he helped create.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot use venture capital to force breakthroughs while virtually already selling the patent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of its proposals have obvious appeal, including reducing the administrative burdens on scientists, speeding up grantmaking, and making the system more flexible. Jason Shepherd, a professor of neurobiology at the University of Utah, told The Verge that \u201cthere are certainly some aspirations in this agenda that most US scientists would agree with: we need more stability, faster peer review, and more incentives to do high risk science.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Shepherd said the document looks like it \u201cwas written by political appointees without any real consultation with scientists\u201d and warned that its assumptions science functions like a business were misplaced. \u201cAcademic science is different to VC funded startups or tech companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an important distinction to make considering Kratsios\u2019 background. Unlike most White House science advisers, Kratsios is not a scientist<\/a> in any sense of the word, and has no scientific credentials. He has a background in tech policy and finance, spending part of his working life at a fund run by Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel.<\/p>\n

Researchers say the report is permeated by this Silicon Valley mindset, as well as a profound lack of scientific understanding. \u201cThe report has no vision for how science works,\u201d said Harvard professor Jeffrey Flier, former dean of the university\u2019s medical school, adding that it \u201cseems blissfully unaware\u201d of the academic environment scientific research needs in order to flourish. \u201cThis is completely insane as an approach to reforming US science funding and operations,\u201d he said, branding the report\u2019s proposals a \u201cmajor threat\u201d and an effort to politicize and control science.<\/p>\n

Other researchers I spoke to feel similarly. The government\u2019s entire approach seems to be built on the \u201cmisguided belief that scientific breakthroughs in the future will come from the tech sector,\u201d Andreas Karch, a physics professor at the University of Texas at Austin, told The Verge. \u201cWhile American tech is also leading in their field, tech and science aren\u2019t the same,\u201d he said, adding that today\u2019s scientific leadership will secure tomorrow\u2019s tech leadership. \u201cThere is little evidence that our big tech companies, despite their stunning successes, can do both.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not that the proposals make that much sense, either. \u201cThe agenda is rife with contradictions,\u201d Shepherd said, pointing to a proposal that suggests radically reducing government support for \u201clife sciences,\u201d while increasing support for \u201cfoundational research in the biological sciences,\u201d two categories that have substantial overlap. Neither the report nor the White House defines<\/a> those terms or explains which fields would gain or lose funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis plan undercuts much of that role, and will have disastrous effects that will ricochet throughout the US economy in years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

The narrow focus on AI is also \u201cmisguided,\u201d Karch said. While there\u2019s certainly a chance it will accelerate progress, he said \u201cright now the problem is that most science done by AI is absolute slop.\u201d Supervision by humans seems \u201cabsolutely key,\u201d he said, but those humans are primarily trained by the universities having their funding slashed. \u201cWe may well end up in the situation where AI will have a few major insights buried under mountains of slop, and the number of people with the experience and knowledge to tell the two apart may rapidly dwindle,\u201d he said, adding that the government\u2019s actions are actually hindering scientists\u2019 abilities to make use of these powerful new technologies.<\/p>\n

The funding and document arrive amid sweeping cuts, grant cancellations, and institutional upheaval across the entire federal funding system, rocking universities, research centers, and government agencies nationwide. Researchers say that reality is difficult to reconcile with the administration\u2019s promise of a new \u201cgolden age\u201d for American science.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an outsider to the US system, this seems to be a further attempt at dismantling the US research universities,\u201d said de Vreese. He called Kratsios\u2019 vision \u201ca fundamental departure from a very successful US science model\u201d that looks like another attempt to \u201cupend the US research university model.\u201d<\/p>\n

That departure could spell disaster. Carl Bergstrom, a professor of biology at the University of Washington, told The Verge the plan fundamentally misunderstands and misrepresents the role US funding agencies play in the scientific endeavor. While they do in part promote technological discoveries and medical breakthroughs \u2014 key priorities in the report \u2014 they are also designed to \u201cdevelop and perpetuate a vibrant STEM ecosystem in the US,\u201d Bergstrom said. \u201cThis plan undercuts much of that role, and will have disastrous effects that will ricochet throughout the US economy in years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

That narrow view of science, focused on outcomes, applications, and measurable returns, is precisely what this new model gets wrong. It treats science like a business, which makes sense given Trump has said<\/a> he runs the country like one.<\/p>\n

Most researchers who spoke to The Verge were deeply skeptical this plan would usher in the promised golden age of American science, with many warning it could cause lasting damage. For other groups, notably those closest to power, the future could look brighter. \u201cThis looks like a golden age for specific groups and likely for tech and venture capitalists,\u201d de Vreese said.<\/p>\n

Shepherd said \u201cacademic science cannot be replaced by a business model.\u201d Most research scientists seem to agree with that sentiment, but the Trump administration seems determined to try anyway.<\/p>\n

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