Computational social science has been distorted by commercial forces, and AI is making it worse.
How should social science think about AI?
Big structures and large processes are back, baby
Will AI ruin the social sciences — or revolutionize them?
The technology can whip up spurious findings and pollute survey responses, but it could also make research more rigorous.
3: Consulting the Record: AI Consistently Fails the Public - AI Now Institute
Amid the excitement over AI’s (speculative, hypothetical) potential, we have lost sight of the sobering reality of its present and recent past. AI is already intermediating critical social infrastructures, materially reshaping our institutions in ways that ratchet up inequality and concentrate power in the hands of the already powerful. It is consistently deployed in ways […]
Field Theory: AI as Social Science Question, Object & Tool
Uses of advanced artificial intelligence are changing how societies organize labor, govern, produce knowledge, and make meaning. In light of these developments, this essay argues that AI models, tools, and systems pose three interrelated imperatives for social science: they demand renewed attention to social theories of how technology, human experience, and social order are entangled; they require study as objects of inquiry in their own right; and they offer capabilities that may transform—or upend—the practice of social investigation itself. From Weber’s analysis of rationalization to Du Bois’s study of technology and inequality to contemporary scholarship on algorithmic governance, the essay examines what social science distinctively offers: the capacity to historicize the apparently unprecedented, to trace connections across scales, and to center those most affected by technological change. It identifies how algorithmic systems are remaking the distribution of opportunity and risk as a central task of social inquiry and asks what futures social science might help bring into being.
"AI" is Automated Inequality
Tech bros still dominate the discussions about so-called "AI" with false claims. Even most "AI"-critical researchers spend much of their time meticulously debunking (always only a subset of) claims, leaving vast areas of the economic consequences of "AI" unexplored. (Even the "AI"-evangelist Economi
No. 010: AutoScientists governance, AI-agent monoculture, nonsense-term retractions - The Hallway Track
The Hallway Track No. 010 - How AI is affecting the practice of science
AI has supercharged scientists—but may have shrunk science
Analysis of 41 million papers finds that although AI expands individual impact, it narrows collective scientific exploration
No. 011: Sum-product conjecture disproof, AI-generated authorship fraud, OMB grant-cost rules - The Hallway Track
The Hallway Track No. 011 - How AI is affecting the practice of science
No. 008: AI co-mathematician, compiler-verified protocols, open infrastructure bets - The Hallway Track
The Hallway Track No. 008 - How AI is affecting the practice of science
Charting AI’s Role in Scientific Discovery — Renaissance Philanthropy – A brighter future for all through science, technology, and innovation
Renaissance Philanthropy, with support from Google.org , is conducting a landscape study of AI integration in scientific research — and we want your perspective.
No. 017: Science EIC contra AI hype, data poisoning of research agents, Vancouver Standard for AI disclosure - The Hallway Track
The Hallway Track No. 017 - How AI is affecting the practice of science
Where does the rigor go? Research software and the future of trustworthy science.
Generative AI now makes it dramatically easier to produce something that looks like research: analysis code, figures, literature reviews, even whole pap…
Will AI spark a scientific renaissance — or a diffuse monoculture?
Artificial intelligence’s ability to enrich science will depend not only on model capability, but also on whether researchers, reviewers and funders reward originality over speed.
Remarkable how over a decade ago @michaelnielsen.bsky.social pointed the way towards solving long standing issues plaguing science to this day (issues that are all the more relevant in the age of AI mediated science)
Ronen Tamari
This is why @atproto.science is so relevant rn This compilation of essays indicates that scientists are most frustrated by insufficient “community tools and resources... Essential infrastructure for sharing, maintaining and building on existing work and data is also badly underdeveloped." >