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Understanding emergence in complex systems using abductive AI

Traditional approaches in complexity science struggle to capture emergent phenomena, but abductive reasoning — now computationally feasible through artificial intelligence — offers a new pathway for discovery.

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Fig. 1: An AI-empowered abductive reasoning framework for discovering emergence in complex systems.

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Correspondence to Yong Li or Deliang Chen.

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Ding, J., Zheng, Y., Xu, F. et al. Understanding emergence in complex systems using abductive AI. Nat Rev Phys 7, 675–677 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-025-00895-5

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