> purely to see what if any hidden underlying structures humanity has collectively missed

This is one of the things I feel has real potential even for "narrow" AI as far as expanding human knowledge. Something may very well be within the scope of known human science without humans ever realizing it. If you represented all human knowledge as a sphere it'd probably have a composition as porous as a sponge.

AI doesn't necessarily need to be able to reason "beyond" current human understanding to expand upon known science, but simply make connections we're unable to see.