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Social Science and Generative AI: Inquiries, Instruments, Consequences

This one-day conference will reflexively examine generative AI as sociotechnical devices, discussing its effects on scientific work and its epistemological and social implications. The presentations will make a particular point of considering the epistemological diversity of the social sciences by giving equal attention to quantitative, qualitative, and participatory approaches.

Event, Conference

Amphi Simone Veil, 28 rue des Saints-Pères, 75007 Paris

Generative AI is gaining increasing attention in the social sciences, serving both as a research focus and a methodological instrument. These rapidly advancing technologies enable the creation of synthetic data, the implementation of large-scale experiments, and the analysis of interviews and ethnographic narratives. Conversely, researchers utilize these technologies to explore their social risks, transformative effects, and political implications.

These emerging practices raise epistemological and ethical questions. How do novel research tools interact with existing approaches to studying social life? Confronted with the opacity of the processes involved in such technologies, what options do researchers have: reclaim control, experiment with, or develop alternative tools from scratch? What changes occur in the relationship between social research and societies concerning positionality in fieldwork, the role of civil society, and the impact on governance institutions?

This conference will explore these critical issues by bringing together prominent international scholars who engage with generative AI through empirical research. They will share their perspectives to explore the interconnected roles of generative AI in academia and society, which are continually linked in its development.

Program

  • 8:30 : Welcome & Coffee
  • 9:00 - 9:15 : Foreword by Luis Vassy (Director of Sciences Po)
  • 9:15 - 9:30 : Introduction by Sylvain Parasie (Director of the medialab)

Panel 1: Data and Models

  • 9:30 - 10:20 :  “AI Errors and the Illusion of Artificial Life: Ethnographic Encounters with Generative AI” by Veronica Barassi (Professor in Media and Communication Studies at the University of St. Gallen)
  • 10:20 - 11:10 : “Preventing Language Models Weaponization: What if their Training Data were to be Compromised?” by Djamé Seddah (Researcher at INRIA Paris’ Almanach)
  • 11:10 - 11:30 : Break
  • 11:30 - 12:20 : “Machine Bias. How Do Generative Language Models Answer Opinion Polls?” by Etienne Ollion (Director of Research at CNRS)

Panel 2: Methods and Approaches

  • 2:00 - 2:50 : “From Stories to Sonnets: Data-Centered NLP for Creative Works” by Maria Antoniak (Assistant Professor in Computer Science at the University of Colorado Boulder)
  • 2:50 - 3:40 : “‘Conversing’ with Large Language Models: Enhancing Qualitative Data Using LLMs” by Adam Hayes (Professor of Sociology at the University of Lucerne)

Panel 3: Public Value and Consequences 

  • 4:00 - 4:50 : “Conditional Computing: Reimagining Europe’s Role in the AI Race” by Fabian Ferrari (Assistant Professor in Cultural AI at the Utrecht University)
  • 4:50 - 5:40 : “Language, Culture, Archive: Provocations from the Humanities for Generative AI Research” by Lauren Frederica Klein (Associate Professor in the Departments of Quantitative Theory and Methods and English at Emory University)
  • 5:40 - 6:00 : Conclusive words

Practical information

Date : June 5th 2025

Hour : 8:30 AM - 6:00 PM

Location : Amphithéâtre Simone Veil, 28 rue des Saints-Pères, 75007 Paris

Language : english

The conference is open to the public, with mandatory registration.