Accelerating Social Science Research via Agentic Hypothesization and Experimentation
Data-driven social science research is inherently slow, relying on iterative cycles of observation, hypothesis generation, and experimental validation. While recent data-driven methods promise to accelerate parts of this process, they largely fail to support end-to-end scientific discovery. To address this gap, we introduce EXPERIGEN, an agentic framework that operationalizes end-to-end discovery through a Bayesian optimization inspired two-phase search, in which a Generator proposes candidate hypotheses and an Experimenter evaluates them empirically. Across multiple domains, EXPERIGEN consistently discovers 2-4x more statistically significant hypotheses that are 7-17 percent more predictive than prior approaches, and naturally extends to complex data regimes including multimodal and relational datasets. Beyond statistical performance, hypotheses must be novel, empirically grounded, and actionable to drive real scientific progress. To evaluate these qualities, we conduct an expert review of machine-generated hypotheses, collecting feedback from senior faculty. Among 25 reviewed hypotheses, 88 percent were rated moderately or strongly novel, 70 percent were deemed impactful and worth pursuing, and most demonstrated rigor comparable to senior graduate-level research. Finally, recognizing that ultimate validation requires real-world evidence, we conduct the first A/B test of LLM-generated hypotheses, observing statistically significant results with p less than 1e-6 and a large effect size of 344 percent.
Code (0)
등록된 구현이 없습니다.
Similar Papers 제목 키워드 기반
GeoAI in Social Science
GeoAI, or geospatial artificial intelligence, is an exciting new area that leverages artificial intelligence (AI), geospatial big data, and massive computing power to solve problems with high automation and intelligence.…
REPRO-Bench: Can Agentic AI Systems Assess the Reproducibility of Social Science Research?
Assessing the reproducibility of social science papers is essential for promoting rigor in research processes, but manual assessment is costly. With recent advances in agentic AI systems (i.e., AI agents), we seek to eva…
Aleks: AI powered Multi Agent System for Autonomous Scientific Discovery via Data-Driven Approaches in Plant Science
Modern plant science increasingly relies on large, heterogeneous datasets, but challenges in experimental design, data preprocessing, and reproducibility hinder research throughput. Here we introduce Aleks, an AI-powered…
From Labor to Collaboration: A Methodological Experiment Using AI Agents to Augment Research Perspectives in Taiwan's Humanities and Social Sciences
Generative AI is reshaping knowledge work, yet existing research focuses predominantly on software engineering and the natural sciences, with limited methodological exploration for the humanities and social sciences. Pos…
Information RetrievalText GenerationVirtuous Machines: Towards Artificial General Science
Artificial intelligence systems are transforming scientific discovery by accelerating specific research tasks, from protein structure prediction to materials design, yet remain confined to narrow domains requiring substa…
Protein Structure Prediction