The future of discovery in the age of human-AI collaboration

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming every aspect of our lives and our society, including academic research. The recent emergence of powerful AI systems such as Generative AI signifies the enormous potential of AI to accelerate research, “mass produce” human knowledge, and enable humans to address scientific questions and engineering challenges that were previously unfathomable. Meanwhile, such potential is still largely speculative and initial successes are still limited in scope. Massive adoption of AI in science and engineering will be possible only when we are able to address a multitude of technical and ethical issues as well as ensure infrastructure and skill building. In this symposium, we bring together leading thinkers and researchers around the country to share their vision and work, in four themes. 

• Speeding up science and engineering research – using AI to automate and accelerate research, such as experimental design optimization and accelerating the workflow.
• The nature of creativity in science and engineering – the role of the AI Scientist and the new role of the Human Scientist.
• Expanding the limit of the Human Scientist – using AI to ask previously unfathomable questions in a number of research fields.
• Trusting the AI Scientist – Upholding research rigor in AI-driven research and ensuring the validation of AI-driven discoveries, and aligning AI-driven discoveries with human values.

Note that we use “the AI Scientist” to refer to AI systems that perform science and engineering research in ways that resemble human researchers; we use “the Human Scientist” to refer to human scientists and engineers. Also note that the four themes are not just applicable to natural sciences and engineering, they are applicable to almost all lines of research and inquiry. As such, we welcome researchers, trainees and the general public to this event regardless of the focus of their intellectual pursuit.