Integrating Generative Artificial Intelligence into Social Science Research: Measurement, Prompting, and Simulation

IF 6.5 2区社会学 Q1 SOCIAL SCIENCES, MATHEMATICAL METHODS

Sociological Methods & Research Pub Date : 2025-05-07 DOI:10.1177/00491241251339184

Thomas Davidson, Daniel Karell

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) offers new capabilities for analyzing data, creating synthetic media, and simulating realistic social interactions. This essay introduces a special issue that examines how these and other affordances of generative AI can advance social science research. We discuss three core themes that appear across the contributed articles: rigorous measurement and validation of AI-generated outputs, optimizing model performance and reproducibility via prompting, and novel uses of AI for the simulation of attitudes and behaviors. We highlight how generative AI enable new methodological innovations that complement and augment existing approaches. This essay and the special issue’s ten articles collectively provide a detailed roadmap for integrating generative AI into social science research in theoretically informed and methodologically rigorous ways. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of the ongoing advances in AI.

查看原文本刊更多论文

将生成式人工智能整合到社会科学研究：测量、提示和模拟

生成式人工智能（AI）为分析数据、创建合成媒体和模拟现实社会互动提供了新的能力。本文介绍了一个特别的问题，探讨了生成式人工智能的这些和其他功能如何推动社会科学研究。我们讨论了在贡献的文章中出现的三个核心主题：严格测量和验证人工智能生成的输出，通过提示优化模型性能和可重复性，以及人工智能在模拟态度和行为方面的新用途。我们强调生成式人工智能如何实现新的方法创新，以补充和增强现有方法。这篇文章和特刊的十篇文章共同提供了一个详细的路线图，将生成人工智能整合到社会科学研究中，以理论上知情和方法上严谨的方式。最后，我们反思了人工智能不断进步的影响。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Sociological Methods & Research Multiple-

CiteScore

16.30

自引率

3.20%

发文量

期刊介绍： Sociological Methods & Research is a quarterly journal devoted to sociology as a cumulative empirical science. The objectives of SMR are multiple, but emphasis is placed on articles that advance the understanding of the field through systematic presentations that clarify methodological problems and assist in ordering the known facts in an area. Review articles will be published, particularly those that emphasize a critical analysis of the status of the arts, but original presentations that are broadly based and provide new research will also be published. Intrinsically, SMR is viewed as substantive journal but one that is highly focused on the assessment of the scientific status of sociology. The scope is broad and flexible, and authors are invited to correspond with the editors about the appropriateness of their articles.