I would have said machine learning is more like materials science, but you are on the right track.
As you increase the number of bits you are trying to comprehend, you move from quantum physics to chemistry to material science to biology to social science.
At certain points, the methods and reproducibility become somewhat of a dark art. I have experience that in my field of materials science.
Because these models are using billions or trillions of random number generators in their probability chains, it starts looking more like the harder hard sciences, it gets very difficult to track and understand what is important.
I think machine learning will be easier to comprehend than social sciences, so I wouldn't put it that high. It will be something between materials science and biology levels of difficulty in understanding.
As you increase the number of bits you are trying to comprehend, you move from quantum physics to chemistry to material science to biology to social science.
At certain points, the methods and reproducibility become somewhat of a dark art. I have experience that in my field of materials science.
Because these models are using billions or trillions of random number generators in their probability chains, it starts looking more like the harder hard sciences, it gets very difficult to track and understand what is important.
I think machine learning will be easier to comprehend than social sciences, so I wouldn't put it that high. It will be something between materials science and biology levels of difficulty in understanding.