Can AI ‘vibe research’ replace social science?

AI tool improvement is compounding fast enough fo…

An episode of the The Science of Politics podcast, hosted by Niskanen Center, titled "Can AI ‘vibe research’ replace social science?" was published on February 4, 2026 and runs 64 minutes.

February 4, 2026 ·64m · The Science of Politics

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Summary

AI tool improvement is compounding fast enough for researchers to start using tools like Claude Code for real social science tasks. What are the early lessons from using AI to conduct research? Will it just mean more slop papers and slop reviewers? Or will it lower barriers to exploration, replication, and robustness, with findings accumulating and spreading faster? Andy Hall designed and executed an extension of his research paper with AI in an hour. He's now compared his results to an extension by hand and created a tool to allow readers to make their own design choices. We discuss the early evidence on how AI has changed research output and quality. The future of research is coming fast.

Episode Description

AI tool improvement is compounding fast enough for researchers to start using tools like Claude Code for real social science tasks. What are the early lessons from using AI to conduct research? Will it just mean more slop papers and slop reviewers? Or will it lower barriers to exploration, replication, and robustness, with findings accumulating and spreading faster? Andy Hall designed and executed an extension of his research paper with AI in an hour. He's now compared his results to an extension by hand and created a tool to allow readers to make their own design choices. We discuss the early evidence on how AI has changed research output and quality. The future of research is coming fast.

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