Seminars in Hearing Research

Date: Thursday, March 05, 2026

Location: Zoom   https://purdue-edu.zoom.us/j/4326340458 Meeting ID: 432 634 0458

Time: 12:00-1:00pm

Speaker:Elle OBrien, PhD. University of Michigan.

Title: What makes scientists feel productive when they program with AI?

Abstract:This talk will present findings from three empirical studies involving interviews, user log reviews and surveys that examine how scientists use generative AI coding tools. We find that scientists overwhelmingly use general-purpose chat tools like ChatGPT over dedicated developer tools, which may have consequences for the cognitive load involved in reviewing generated code. We also find that most scientists work in multiple programming languages and use generative AI tools to navigate less-familiar languages and libraries. Finally, we observe that perceived productivity gains with AI support are inversely related to both programming experience and use of software development practices like testing and version control. Given that scientific code is already undertested and scientists are undertrained as developers, increased reliance on AI-generated code may strain existing code quality control mechanisms in science. We will discuss the implications of these findings for research integrity broadly.

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The working schedule is available here: https://purdue.edu/TPAN/hearing/shrp_schedule

The titles and abstracts of the talks will be added here: https://purdue.edu/TPAN/hearing/shrp_abstracts