chenhaotan.bsky.social
@chenhaotan.bsky.social
Associate professor at the University of Chicago. Working on human-centered AI, NLP, CSS. https://chenhaot.com, https://substack.com/@cichicago
Pinned
AI can accelerate scientific discovery, but only if we get the scientist–AI interaction right.

The dream of “autonomous AI scientists” is tempting:
machines that generate hypotheses, run experiments, and write papers. But science isn’t just automation.

cichicago.substack.com/p/the-mirage...
🧵
The Mirage of Autonomous AI Scientists
Science as AI’s killer application cannot succeed without scientist-AI interaction: Introducing Hypogenic.ai.
cichicago.substack.com
Hannes Stark will be speaking this Friday on BoltzGen!

You can tune in either on

Zoom: uchicago.zoom.us/j/9897879984...
Youtube: www.youtube.com/@AIScientifi...
February 2, 2026 at 10:47 PM
Happening in three hours!
January 30, 2026 at 2:03 PM
Reposted
Microsoft Research NYC is hiring a researcher in the space of AI and society!
January 29, 2026 at 11:27 PM
@profbuehlermit.bsky.social from MIT will be speaking this Friday!

You can tune in either on

Zoom: uchicago.zoom.us/j/9897879984...
Youtube: www.youtube.com/@AIScientifi...
January 26, 2026 at 8:42 PM
Happening in two hours!
Peter Clark from @ai2.bsky.social will be speaking on Friday!

You can tune in either on

Zoom: uchicago.zoom.us/j/9897879984...
Youtube: www.youtube.com/@AIScientifi...
January 23, 2026 at 3:03 PM
Peter Clark from @ai2.bsky.social will be speaking on Friday!

You can tune in either on

Zoom: uchicago.zoom.us/j/9897879984...
Youtube: www.youtube.com/@AIScientifi...
January 20, 2026 at 7:17 PM
Reposted
Posted a very early stage draft with rock star collaborators.

Key question: when we actually roll out AI tools, how do people use them? Do they just defer completely? Does it improve productivity and ability?

We look in the medical setting of pulmonary embolisms
paulgp.com/papers/Radio...
January 19, 2026 at 8:17 PM
Reposted
I've often joked that as faculty I program in a high-level language called "graduate student". Having tried out Claude Code this morning, I (i) feel extremely at home, (ii) am realizing that research-by-graduate-student is perhaps the original vibe-coding. 1/2
January 8, 2026 at 12:24 PM
Reposted
I've seen this message and similar echos for other writing, and I want strongly push back on this narrative. It's not that you shouldn't use ChatGPT but that you shouldn't *use ChatGPT to write it for you*. ChatGPT—and AI in general—is not a monolith. How you use it matters.
I have some bad news. One, if you need to use ChatGPT for your graduate application letter, you are not ready for graduate school.

Two, no, not "everyone is doing it" and those who don't do it aren't "losing out." ChatGPT is not an advantage.
An impressive number of graduate applications this year used the phrase “curiosity-driven approach” 🤔
January 18, 2026 at 4:55 PM
Very much enjoyed this talk by @yisongyue.bsky.social ! The measurement challenge deserves a lot more attention from the AI community!
January 16, 2026 at 6:54 PM
Happening in two hours!
Professor @yisongyue.bsky.social will be speaking this Friday at the AI & Scientific Discovery seminar!

Zoom: uchicago.zoom.us/j/9897879984...
Youtube: www.youtube.com/@AIScientifi...
January 16, 2026 at 2:43 PM
Reposted
Excited to present a new preprint with @nkgarg.bsky.social: presenting usage statistics and observational findings from Paper Skygest in the first six months of deployment! 🎉📜

arxiv.org/abs/2601.04253
January 14, 2026 at 7:48 PM
Emergent misalignment made into @nature.com! The key insight is that models fine-tuned on writing insecure code present a wide range of insecure behavior in other contexts.
January 15, 2026 at 3:37 PM
Reposted
Join us on Friday, January 16th for this week’s AI & Scientific Discovery Online Seminar!

Featuring Yisong Yue, Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences at @caltech.edu

You can participate online or in-person at DSI. Learn more at ai-scientific-discovery.github.io
January 12, 2026 at 8:15 PM
Professor @yisongyue.bsky.social will be speaking this Friday at the AI & Scientific Discovery seminar!

Zoom: uchicago.zoom.us/j/9897879984...
Youtube: www.youtube.com/@AIScientifi...
January 12, 2026 at 6:16 PM
I certainly did not realize that this is such a controversial take:

Chenhao: "Finding the equilibrium of publishing will take at least a decade."
25% agree, 75% disagree
January 12, 2026 at 3:24 PM
Reposted
Let us all stand with Chairman Powell.
January 12, 2026 at 2:36 AM
Reposted
I can't read Chinese, but my family has old genealogy documents I've always wanted to understand. Claude and Gemini helped me build an interactive reader to explore the calligraphy character by character.

I can finally read my great-grandfather's epitaph. Try it:
davidbau.com/archives/202...
January 12, 2026 at 3:12 AM
Reposted
The recent days have been horrific. We can't become numb to repeated instances of illegal and unconstitutional action by government agencies. It's even worse when public officials are blatantly lying in ways that contradict dozens of pieces of video evidence.
Sen. Lankford blatantly lies about what the video of Renee Good's killing shows: "A classic law enforcement moment -- they have to fire their weapon and then when you see her car crash, law enforcement is running to her to provide aid. They're never looking to be able to take a life of individuals."
January 9, 2026 at 9:40 PM
Reposted
We have an important #FAccT2026 update! Our new dates are June 25-June 28 and our new location is Le Centre Sheraton Montréal. We’re so sorry for any inconvenience caused by this change!

Why the change? Thread -->

1/n
January 10, 2026 at 10:37 PM
The first talk is happening in two hours! Yonatan Belinkov is going to talk about "Interpretability for Scientific Discovery: Some Opportunities and Challenges"!

You can tune in either on

Zoom: uchicago.zoom.us/j/9897879984...
Youtube: youtube.com/@AIScientifi...

Hope to see you soon!
January 9, 2026 at 3:25 PM
Happy new year! The AI & Scientific Discovery Seminar is returning this quarter. Last quarter was incredible, from protein design to automated bio labs. Huge thanks to all our amazing speakers and attendees 🙌

We’re kicking off Winter Quarter with an 🔥 lineup, starting in two hours!
🧵
January 9, 2026 at 3:24 PM
Reposted
It’s not about drugs. If it was, Trump wouldn’t have pardoned one of the largest narco traffickers in the world last month.

It’s about oil and regime change.

And they need a trial now to pretend that it isn’t. Especially to distract from his sinking under Epstein and skyrocketing healthcare costs.
January 3, 2026 at 3:34 PM
Reposted
Brown has canceled all remaining classes and exams for the Fall semester.
December 14, 2025 at 1:28 PM