Better artificial intelligence does not mean better models of biology

Deep neural networks (DNNs) once showed increasing alignment with primate perception as they improved on vision benchmarks, raising hopes that advances in artificial intelligence (AI) would naturally yield better models of biological vision. However, we present accumulating evidence that this alignment is now plateauing - and in some cases worsening - as DNNs scale to human or even superhuman accuracy. This divergence between artificial and biological perception may reflect the acquisition of visual strategies distinct from those of primates, and these findings challenge the view that advances in AI will naturally translate to progress in neuroscience. We argue that vision science must chart its own course, developing algorithms grounded in biological visual systems rather than optimizing for internet data.