How to use this guide

This guide is meant to help you keep up to date on the most useful AI tools for social science researchers in a rapidly developing space. My hope is that it will be useful to scientists across the methodological spectrum, whether you have experience working with AI models or not. Most of the tools included here are useful for completing certain tasks and do not require any certain skillsets, including writing code, to use them.

That said, there are many methodological pitfalls when using AI tools for research that mostly stem from using the wrong tool for a well-intended purpose. Each of the tools will include some notes on what to use them for and what you may not want to use them for.

When it comes to AI tools, you’re probably the most familiar with ChatGPT, which more or less underlies most of the tools listed here. OpenAI’s models are built to be very general, and many companies and researchers have built on-top of these models to optimize them for certain purposes. Some tools are little more than an interface over an OpenAI model while others are models that have been specially trained for their use cases.

Because generative AI has only reached the point of being useful for many tasks traditionally conducted by humans over the last few years, most of the tools associated with it are in the early stages of development. You’ll notice that some of the tools listed here are very new while others will feel like fully developed products. I’ve included both because I expect some of you will be excited enough about a new technology to engage with it at its early stages and, if you’re feeling generous, send some notes to the creators to contribute to their development. Others of you will prefer to stick to tools that are fully developed and tested products. This guide includes notes about my perception of the stage of development of various tools so you can choose how adventurous you want to be.

Most importantly, this list is ever evolving. If you want to stay up to date with the developments I list here, sign up for my newsletter using the text field above. If you know of a tool that you think would be useful for other researchers, use the “Suggest a Tool” button in the menu on the left to let me know.