But it could also convince them that a biological effect exists when it does not. Synthetic biological data could help fill in missing measurements, protect patient privacy, create comparison groups, lower research costs, or reduce the number of animals used in experiments. But if AI inserts a feature that was never present, scientists could believe they had discovered a biological effect that never occurred. In other words, while processing genuine data, AI could alter a signal in a way that is difficult to detect. Burger had not previously considered whether an AI hallucination could lead to a real discovery.