HybridQuestion: Human-AI Collaboration for Identifying High-Impact Research Questions

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Zhao, Keyu, Xu, Fengli, Li, Yong, Liu, Tie-Yan
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Zhao, Keyu
Xu, Fengli
Li, Yong
Liu, Tie-Yan
author_facet Zhao, Keyu
Xu, Fengli
Li, Yong
Liu, Tie-Yan
contents The "AI Scientist" paradigm is transforming scientific research by automating key stages of the research process, from idea generation to scholarly writing. This shift is expected to accelerate discovery and expand the scope of scientific inquiry. However, a key question remains unclear: can AI scientists identify meaningful research questions? While Large Language Models (LLMs) have been applied successfully to task-specific ideation, their potential to conduct strategic, long-term assessments of past breakthroughs and future questions remains largely unexplored. To address this gap, we explore a human-AI hybrid solution that integrates the scalable data processing capabilities of AI with the value judgment of human experts. Our methodology is structured in three phases. The first phase, AI-Accelerated Information Gathering, leverages AI's advantage in processing vast amounts of literature to generate a hybrid information base. The second phase, Candidate Question Proposing, utilizes this synthesized data to prompt an ensemble of six diverse LLMs to propose an initial candidate pool, filtered via a cross-model voting mechanism. The third phase, Hybrid Question Selection, refines this pool through a multi-stage filtering process that progressively increases human oversight. To validate this system, we conducted an experiment aiming to identify the Top 10 Scientific Breakthroughs of 2025 and the Top 10 Scientific Questions for 2026 across five major disciplines. Our analysis reveals that while AI agents demonstrate high alignment with human experts in recognizing established breakthroughs, they exhibit greater divergence in forecasting prospective questions, suggesting that human judgment remains crucial for evaluating subjective, forward-looking challenges.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_03849
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle HybridQuestion: Human-AI Collaboration for Identifying High-Impact Research Questions
Zhao, Keyu
Xu, Fengli
Li, Yong
Liu, Tie-Yan
Human-Computer Interaction
Artificial Intelligence
Computation and Language
Machine Learning
The "AI Scientist" paradigm is transforming scientific research by automating key stages of the research process, from idea generation to scholarly writing. This shift is expected to accelerate discovery and expand the scope of scientific inquiry. However, a key question remains unclear: can AI scientists identify meaningful research questions? While Large Language Models (LLMs) have been applied successfully to task-specific ideation, their potential to conduct strategic, long-term assessments of past breakthroughs and future questions remains largely unexplored. To address this gap, we explore a human-AI hybrid solution that integrates the scalable data processing capabilities of AI with the value judgment of human experts. Our methodology is structured in three phases. The first phase, AI-Accelerated Information Gathering, leverages AI's advantage in processing vast amounts of literature to generate a hybrid information base. The second phase, Candidate Question Proposing, utilizes this synthesized data to prompt an ensemble of six diverse LLMs to propose an initial candidate pool, filtered via a cross-model voting mechanism. The third phase, Hybrid Question Selection, refines this pool through a multi-stage filtering process that progressively increases human oversight. To validate this system, we conducted an experiment aiming to identify the Top 10 Scientific Breakthroughs of 2025 and the Top 10 Scientific Questions for 2026 across five major disciplines. Our analysis reveals that while AI agents demonstrate high alignment with human experts in recognizing established breakthroughs, they exhibit greater divergence in forecasting prospective questions, suggesting that human judgment remains crucial for evaluating subjective, forward-looking challenges.
title HybridQuestion: Human-AI Collaboration for Identifying High-Impact Research Questions
topic Human-Computer Interaction
Artificial Intelligence
Computation and Language
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.03849