Human Sciences Applied to AI

A broader term encompassing all humanities and human-centered disciplines (philosophy, history, linguistics, arts) brought to bear on the development and deployment of artificial intelligence. It goes beyond fixing bias to ask fundamental questions: What does it mean to be human in an age of intelligent machines? How do we preserve dignity, creativity, and meaning? It's the practice of ensuring that as we build smarter machines, we don't build dumber or lesser humans in the process.

Example: "The ethics board was useless until they brought in a philosopher for human sciences applied to AI—he asked questions about personhood that the engineers had never even considered."

by Dumu The Void March 11, 2026

Cognitive Sciences Applied to AI

The practice of using our understanding of the human mind—perception, memory, reasoning, language, and learning—to inspire and improve artificial intelligence. It's the belief that the best way to build a smart machine is to reverse-engineer the only working example we have: the human brain. From neural networks (loosely inspired by neurons) to reinforcement learning (inspired by animal conditioning), this field has been central to AI's development, for better and for worse.

Cognitive Sciences Applied to AI Example: "The chatbot was terrible at conversation until they applied cognitive sciences to AI and taught it to manage turn-taking and context like a real human would."

by Dumu The Void March 11, 2026

Data Science Applied to AI

The engineering and methodological discipline of preparing, cleaning, analyzing, and governing the data that powers artificial intelligence. It recognizes that AI models are only as good as the data they're trained on. This field focuses on the entire data pipeline: sourcing high-quality data, removing bias, ensuring privacy, and managing the massive datasets required to train modern AI. It's the unglamorous but absolutely essential grunt work that makes the magic happen.

Data Science Applied to AI Example: "The model kept failing, and they realized it was a data science applied to AI problem—the training data was full of duplicates and errors they'd never bothered to clean."

by Dumu The Void March 11, 2026

Power Science

The systematic study of power itself—its forms, dynamics, sources, and effects—using scientific methods. Unlike philosophy of power, which speculates, power science aims to observe, measure, and model how power operates in human systems. It asks empirical questions: How do power hierarchies form? What predicts the rise and fall of leaders? How does power corrupt, and can we measure that corruption? It's political science, sociology, and psychology focused with laser intensity on the single most important force in human affairs.

Example: "The book wasn't just history; it was power science, offering a data-driven model for how empires actually rise and why they eventually collapse."

by Dumu The Void March 11, 2026

Might Science

The study of might, force, strength, and raw capability as distinct from institutional or social power. Where power science looks at control and influence, might science looks at the brute capacity to effect change through sheer force—military strength, physical prowess, economic leverage, or technological superiority. It's the science of who can actually do what, regardless of who has the "right" to do it. It acknowledges that in the end, power often rests on a foundation of might.

Example: "The diplomat had all the soft power in the world, but the general understood might science: when the tanks roll in, charm stops mattering."

by Dumu The Void March 11, 2026

Social Sciences of Science

The application of sociological methods and theories to understand science itself as a social phenomenon. This field examines how scientific communities form, how prestige and funding flow through them, how consensus emerges (or fails to), and how social factors influence what gets studied and what gets ignored. It's not judging whether science is "true" but asking: who gets to be a scientist? Which questions are asked? Whose voices are heard? It treats the lab as a tribe and the journal as a ritual space.

Example: "The social sciences of science reveal that the 'lone genius' myth is just that—a myth that obscures the messy, collaborative, socially embedded reality of how discovery actually happens."

by Dumu The Void March 11, 2026

Social Sciences of Scientific Method

A meta-field that turns the tools of social science onto the scientific method itself, treating it not as a timeless, universal procedure but as a historically and culturally specific practice. It asks: How did this particular set of rules for inquiry become the gold standard? How do different disciplines modify the method? What social negotiations happen when results don't fit? It's the study of how scientists actually do science, as opposed to how textbooks say they should, revealing the method as a living, evolving social contract.

Example: "The replication crisis in psychology became a case study for the social sciences of scientific method—showing how the community's norms had failed and needed renegotiation."

by Dumu The Void March 11, 2026