How AI is changing what it means to be a researcher

Academia’s greatest flex is dead (and how AI killed it)

Is this the future we are looking at?

Last Wednesday, as I slowly sipped what was probably my third Latté of the day (because f%$k you liquid calories), Google casually shattered my professional identity by releasing their co-scientist multi-agent AI system. I’ve demonstrated how a well-prompted AI system can generate a comprehensive literature review in my field in about 20 minutes before. But with the release of Google’s Co-Scientist and other multi-agent AI research tools, my very job is facing the instant urge to evolve or mutate significantly in the near future. David Cronenberg would have loved to write the script to this reality I’m facing. With the battle scars of a reduced sabbatical, delayed tenure review, some research papers that nearly broke me, and enough rejection letters to wallpaper my entire office, I sat there wondering if I’d become the academic equivalent of a horse-drawn carriage in the age of Teslas. Real museum stuff.

This wasn’t just some technological anxiety. I am facing an existential crisis packaged in a sleek user interface. And, honestly, I don’t think I’m the only one. Caffeine clearly isn’t the answer to this one, because about a day later another notification popped up about yet another AI breakthrough. As if to underscore this technological…