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Accepted manuscript

Can Generative AI Produce Novel Evidence?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2025

Donal Khosrowi Open the ORCID record for Donal Khosrowi [Opens in a new window]  and
Finola Finn Open the ORCID record for Finola Finn [Opens in a new window]
Donal Khosrowi*
Affiliation:
Institute of Philosophy, Leibniz University Hannover
Finola Finn
Affiliation:
Centre for Contemporary and Digital History, University of Luxembourg, finola.finn@uni.lu
*
donal.khosrowi@philos.uni-hannover.de
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Abstract

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Researchers in history and the historical sciences explore the use of generative AI (GenAI) systems for reconstructing destroyed artifacts. This paper poses a novel question: can such GenAI systems generate evidence that provides new knowledge about the world or can they only produce hypotheses that we might seek evidence for? Exploring responses to this question, the paper argues that 1) GenAI outputs can at least be understood as higher-order evidence (Parker 2022) and 2) may also produce de novo synthetic evidence.

Information

Type
Contributed Paper
Information
Philosophy of Science , Accepted manuscript , pp. 1 - 28
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Philosophy of Science Association