Online event
23-27 September 2024
The technology around Artificial Intelligence (AI) has nowadays achieved remarkable performances in terms of speed, response quality, affordability to the public and reliability. The use of AI technologies will soon (if not already!) play a significant role in the way scientists, and astronomers in particular, process data, write and evaluate applications of all sorts (research grants, observing proposals, job applications), or more generally, the way we do research in astronomy. Beyond the impact on the way we do science, AI might have a non-negligible sociological impact, overtaking some of the tasks currently requiring human intervention, hence removing or mitigating the need of a variety of skills (e.g., programming, peer-review and evaluations, administrative tasks).
This is particularly true when considering generative AI and large language models (LLM) like the generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) language, which has been growing exponentially in recent years.
The public discovered the immense potential of artificial intelligence systems at the end of 2022 with the release of the ChatGPT editorial content generator from the Californian company OpenAI, which can write original essays, poems, or translations in a few seconds. Soon, software engineers and scientists were considering using it for their work. Also, ChatGPT became successful so quickly that many journals were forced to release formal rules to make it clear that ChatGPT or the likes could not be co-authors of papers.
Given the speed at which such technology grows and enters our scientific (and personal) life, it is imperative to have a deep look into them with the help of experts in the field of astronomy, physics, software development, economy, sociology, and medicine.
