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Scientific Progress and Artificial Intelligence: a Capabilities-Based Ethnographic Epistemology

Objective

Science is famous for its tools, which focus or empower abilities like seeing, calculating, remembering, manipulating, and predicting. Yet despite centuries of organized science and decades of science studies, there is still very little written about what scientific abilities are, or how tools extend them. This is striking, because scientific progress is clearly tied to scientists' increasing ability to solve problems.

PACE proposes an interdisciplinary comparative study of what is being called a revolution in scientific ability: the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) methods. PACE has descriptive and normative aims. The main descriptive aim is to identify how AI is currently being used across four case studies (fusion reactor design, physical robotics, protein folding, and space science), using qualitative and quantitative methods to pinpoint the ways in which AI is affecting specific scientific abilities. The empirical data gathered will inform the normative work, which is to identify the sense(s) in which increasing scientific ability amounts to scientific progress, and whether/when AI is good or bad for scientific abilities. The project will produce the first general philosophical account of scientific ability, and the first ethnography of AI use in science. These will reveal new details about science as it is currently practiced, and it will produce a pragmatist ability-focused epistemology of science.

Key questions: What scientific problems is AI being introduced to solve, and why? Which abilities are being empowered, depowered, or otherwise changed by AI, and how? How should abilities be conceived to enable more efficient and ethical scientific education/practice? How do improved abilities constitute and/or work together with more traditional signs of progress like knowledge and understanding?

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2025-COG

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Host institution

UNIVERSITY OF YORK
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 935 827,00
Address
HESLINGTON
YO10 5DD YORK NORTH YORKSHIRE
United Kingdom

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Region
Yorkshire and the Humber North Yorkshire York
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 935 827,00

Beneficiaries (1)

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