“Search” here means trying a bunch of possibilities and seeing what works. Like how a sudoku solver or pathfinding algorithm does search, not how a search engine does.
But the domain of “AI Research” is broad and imprecise - not simple and discrete like chess game states. What is the type of each point in the search space for AI Research?
In chess we know how to describe all possible board states and the transitions (the next moves). We just don’t know which transition is the best to pick, hence it’s a well defined search problem.
With AI Research we don’t even know the shape of the states and transitions, or even if that’s an appropriate way to think about things.
