‘Wild west’ era of GenAI poses opportunities and challenges for science

Source Domain: news.cornell.edu

Experts from across academia, industry and funding agencies gathered to discuss how generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is transforming science – the good, the bad and the unknown – at the Assessing and Imagining the Impact of Generative AI on Science Symposium, held March 3-5 on the Cornell campus.

In a series of panel discussions, participants considered both the incredible boom in scientific productivity this technology has enabled, and associated issues related to AI governance, equity, access and public trust.

This was a forward-looking event where diverse scholars from Cornell and beyond – including computer scientists, biologists, philosophers and social scientists – met to grapple with the impacts of GenAI across scientific research as a whole, said co-organizer Yian Yin, assistant professor of information science in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.

“Normally, we’re off in our own little slices of the universe,” said co-organizer AJ Alvero, assistant research professor in Cornell’s Center for Data Science for Enterprise and Society. “But for this week, we were all in the same room, able to talk about this important issue and how it’s changing perspectives in our fields.”

Thorsten Joachims, vice provost for artificial intelligence strategy and the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor in the departments of Computer Science and Information Science, gave the opening remarks for the symposium.

“We’re witnessing a fundamental shift in how science is conducted and communicated,” Joachims said. “While these changes are exciting, there are important implications we must explore to ensure that the use of generative AI is rigorous and respects disciplinary norms, and does not erode public confidence in research.”

GenAI is accelerating the rate of scientific discovery and leading to greater numbers of scientific publications for scientists who can access them. Large language models, like the one that powers…

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