Does the emergence of AI and its use in science, put science in danger of becoming a religion, with AI as gods?

Sounds to me like an interesting science fantasy story, if well written, maybe.

In reality, I think what you’re talking about in the details section is something where scientists would look at such results and then try to figure out how to confirm them independently. This has already been happening for a long time. e.g. Given seismic data, neural networks see patterns humans humans didn’t notice… but they often were just mathematical patterns, which didn’t correspond to something significant.

In other senses, notions of science might be viewed as already having taken on unfortunate aspects of religion, with people mis-identifying inaccurate ideas about aspects of science in ways similar to what they’ve done with religion, trying to barter a notion of “faith” for deceiving senses of comfort and security.

No.

No. Science is based on experimental testing. People may not know how the AI made its discovery, but it would have to provide a means for independent verification.