Leveraging AI to Transform the Astronomy Data Revolution into a Discovery Revolution

With astronomy facing an influx of petabytes of data from next generation telescopes, the limitations of traditional analytical methods are becoming more evident and urgent. Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents a pivotal opportunity to not only address these limitations, but to transform this data revolution into a discovery revolution.

However, astronomy poses challenges to the current generation of AI methods, which are primarily adapted to different types of datasets and goals. Specific challenges include: (1) the complex nature of astronomical data—heteroscedastic, multivariate, sporadically sampled, and unannotated; (2) the task of extracting meaningful physical insights from this data.

In this talk, I will discuss the need for developing AI specifically for astronomy and explore the perspectives, challenges, and opportunities ahead. Emphasizing the importance of community readiness, I will highlight the collaborative and interdisciplinary efforts required to develop AI tools tailored to astronomical research.