The Transformation of Research Methods in the Humanities and Social Sciences Empowered by Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence, exemplified by tools like AlphaFold and ChatGPT, is transforming society and driving the emergence of new research paradigms, including in the humanities and social sciences."AI-driven Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences" (AI4SS) is recognized as the fifth paradigm in these fields. Unlike the previous four paradigms of scientific research—based on experimentation, theory, simulation, and data-driven approaches, respectively—the fifth paradigm in the humanities and social sciences is defined by six key features: (1) AI empowers the entire research process across all disciplines; (2) machine-generated intelligence is becoming an integral component of humanities and social science research; (3) AI-powered probabilistic models help address the problem of combinatorial explosion in social science research; (4) AI constructs complex, multi-node networks to advance research in these fields; (5) AI-driven virtual reality fosters the integration of theory and practice in humanities and social sciences; and (6) large-scale, model-based research platforms have become essential for humanities and social science research. AI4SS is sparking a revolution, fundamentally reshaping research methodologies related to topic selection, academic history review, hypothesis generation, and hypothesis testing. To accelerate this transformation, it is critical to advance the development of open-source, large-scale models specifically designed for these disciplines.