Can Generative AI Produce Novel Evidence?
Finn, Finola
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 constitu