Chenhao Tan (UChicago): Schmidt AI in Science Speaker Series
Organized by the University of Chicago’s Eric and Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Fellowship Program.
Agenda
4:00pm – 4:45pm: Presentation
4:45pm – 5:00pm: Q&A
5:00pm – 5:30pm: Reception
Meeting location
William Eckhardt Research Center. Room 401
5640 S Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637
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Title: Science in the Age of AI
Abstract: As AI becomes increasingly capable of following instructions and conducting analyses, I believe that scientists will increasingly play the role of selector and evaluator. In this talk, I will share our recent advances in AI-enabled hypothesis generation and research evaluation. Rather than treating AI hallucinations as obstacles to eliminate, we leverage data and literature to steer AI creativity toward generating effective hypotheses. I will also introduce HypoBench, a dedicated benchmark for evaluating hypothesis generation, which reveals significant room for potential improvement of current AI models. Finally, I will present ongoing work that formalizes the evaluation of research outcomes beyond the paper itself and use AI to conduct robust evaluation of research evaluation, with a case study on mechanistic interpretability.
Bio: Chenhao Tan is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and Data Science at the University of Chicago, and directs the Chicago Human+AI Lab. He earned his PhD in Computer Science from Cornell University and dual bachelor’s degrees in computer science and economics from Tsinghua University. His research focuses on human-centered AI, communication & intelligence, AI & Scientific Discovery, and AI alignment. His work has been covered by major news media outlets, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. He also won a Sloan research fellowship, an NSF CAREER award, an NSF CRII award, a Google research scholar award, research awards from Amazon, IBM, JP Morgan, and Salesforce, a Facebook fellowship, and a Yahoo! Key Scientific Challenges award.
