Exploring the Frontier of Science with AI and the Role of Humanities

Within the broad spectrum of practices that fall under the label of “science with AI”, historical-religious knowledge performs a specific function: it is not a late and passive user of the by-products of digital innovation, but rather a proactive and validating actor from the early stages of the adoption and development of innovative technologies. What AI research makes possible is not merely a gain in time, but a gain in epistemic horizons. This requires a radical intellectual shift, as well as the effort to formulate questions that would be impossible, or scarcely conceivable, “without AI”. This volume brings together contributions by scholars in history, philosophy, philology, law, political science, media studies, linguistics, art, and statistics, some of whom have been conducting research with digital technologies for many years. They reflect on the new and more complex questions that artificial intelligence enables them to pose both to their sources and to the developers of AI systems. At the same time, they examine the role of their own expertise in the very construction, evaluation, and critical understanding of AI.