Speaker
Description
The advances of generative AI are staggering and progress is expected to continue at high speed. In the near future astronomers will likely be able to use AI agents to accompany them in the entire process from proposal preparation to archival search, data analysis and publication. How to leverage the advantages for astronomy? How to mitigate the risks?
In this BoF we try to look into the consequences of this evolution:
What does this evolution mean for astronomers and their daily work (user-experience)?
What does this evolution mean for observatories and the tools and interfaces they provide (e.g. gui vs. programmatic)?
What should observatories do to become 'AI ready'?
What should observatories do to help astronomers?
Already in May this year - and thus just 2.5 years after the first release of ChatGPT - a generative AI has demonstrated fully autonomous PhD-level research capability in computer science (https://www.intology.ai/blog/zochi-acl). It is conceivable, and maybe even likely, that in some years from now AI will be powerful enough to do autonomous research in astronomy.
In this BoF we also try to anticipate this scenario and ask ourselves:
What would this evolution mean for astronomers?
What would this evolution mean for observatories?
What should be done now?
| Affiliation of the submitter | ESO/ALMA |
|---|---|
| Attendance | in-person |
