Duede, Eamon and Friedman, Daniel (2025) Epistemic Gaps and the Attribution of (AI) Discovery. [Preprint]
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Abstract
What does it take to properly recognize someone as having made a scientific discovery? According to the 'Cognitivist', discovery attribution properly depends on the exercise of distinctive cognitive capacities such as competence, meta-reflective awareness, or domain-general understanding. Since AI systems lack such capacities, they cannot, on this view, be discoverers. If the Cognitivist is right, AI-driven science will be a markedly impoverished enterprise. Here, we argue otherwise. We develop an alternative, non-cognitivist conception of scientific discovery according to which discovery turns on successfully negotiating epistemic gaps. This reconception, we argue, better captures both familiar human cases and novel AI contributions, thereby re-framing the grounds for attributions of discovery in contemporary science. AI systems, we argue, can be appropriately attributed scientific discoveries. Along the way we develop a general moral for philosophical reflection in the age of AI-infused science.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | |||||||||
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| Keywords: | Artificial Intelligence Scientific Discovery Philosophy of Science | |||||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics Specific Sciences > Artificial Intelligence General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science Specific Sciences > Mathematics General Issues > Theory Change |
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| Depositing User: | Dr. Eamon Duede | |||||||||
| Date Deposited: | 03 Jan 2026 02:31 | |||||||||
| Last Modified: | 03 Jan 2026 02:31 | |||||||||
| Item ID: | 27719 | |||||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics Specific Sciences > Artificial Intelligence General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science Specific Sciences > Mathematics General Issues > Theory Change |
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| Date: | November 2025 | |||||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/27719 |
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