Brown Bag Seminar: Open discussion session: AI in qualitative research – debates for and against
This is a hybrid event taking place at the University of Helsinki Main Building, Fabianinkatu 33, 3rd floor, room F3010. For remote participation, use this link.
The use of AI in qualitative research has become a heated debate, with strong opinions for and against what this means for scientific research. In 2025, for instance, more than four hundred qualitative researchers signed an open letter in Qualitative Inquiry – “We Reject the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence for Reflexive Qualitative Research,” arguing that statistical prediction is not understanding and that reflexive analysis is work that only humans can do. The same journal has since carried several rebuttals to this epistemic position, beginning with Stefano De Paoli’s “Why We Should Reject to Reject…”, which argues that the boundary between human and machine interpretation is not as clear-cut. This Brown Bag seminar will not decide the debate. What we want to do instead is bring together people from the University of Helsinki and elsewhere to discuss these issues and share experiences of doing qualitative research in a rapidly changing academic environment. The session will start with a brief remark on the contours of the debate and then leave the room open for discussion. Please join us in our open discussion session with your experiences, opinions and curiosity both offline and online.
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The Methodological unit at the Helsinki Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (Uni Helsinki) organizes a recurrent Brown Bag Seminar to highlight novel methodological approaches in the humanities and social sciences. The idea of the meetings is to introduce methodological innovations and cutting-edge research in various disciplines in an easily accessible manner and have an interdisciplinary discussion in an easy-going atmosphere over lunch.
There will be a 20-minute introduction to the methodological theme, followed by an open discussion of 40 minutes. The seminars are open to everybody and welcome a multidisciplinary and methodologically curious audience. The language of the meetings can be Finnish or English.
More information is available on the event site.