Title: Airplanes for the Mind
Speaker: Dashun Wang, Northwestern University
Abstract: Steve Jobs famously called computers “bicycles for the mind”—a metaphor for the personal-computing era, emphasizing tools that let individuals go farther and faster with less effort. Today, AI agents demand a new metaphor. They are airplanes for the mind: heavier-than-air machines that should not fly but do. These “airplanes” have the potential to dramatically extend the scale, speed, and coordination of human cognition, while introducing new challenges for science and discovery. This talk will focus on these “airplanes” and ask what changes for science when AI systems move from passive tools to active partners, drawing on research from the science of science. Throughout history, discoveries have been made by humans. As AI systems increasingly participate in discovery, the central question is how we design human–AI collaboration to make science more accountable, reproducible, and ultimately transformative. The question is not whether machines replace scientists, but what kind of scientist emerges when we learn to fly.
Zoom: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/98783022855
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