Rethinking Graduate Research in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

How is artificial intelligence (AI) reshaping scientific research? As part of the "Conversations in Graduate Education" series, the Graduate School hosted a virtual discussion on Wednesday, November 6, featuring Lisa Messeri (Yale University) and Molly Crockett (Princeton University), co-authors of the Naturearticle "Artificial intelligence and illusions of understanding in scientific research."

Messeri and Crockett explore how the increasing use of AI in research and education can create deceptive impressions of understanding that may hinder, rather than drive, scientific progress. During the session, they presented a framework for recognizing these "illusions" and using AI responsibly to advance research, deepen interpretation and support the next generation of scholars.

"This session was an opportunity for graduate program directors and faculty to reflect on the impact artificial intelligence - or automation, as Drs. Messeri and Crockett call it - will have on research training into the future," said Molly Lotz, moderator of the session and director of Research Training Initiatives and interim director for the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs. "The speakers applied the findings in their Naturearticle to graduate education, sparking a discussion about how to train early-career researchers in the context of AI."

That discussion highlighted a broader question at the heart of graduate education today: striking a balance between AI and the critical thinking and ethical awareness essential to meaningful research.

About the Speakers

Lisa Messeri is an associate professor of anthropology at Yale University, where she specializes in the anthropology of science and technology. Her research focuses on the norms, aspirations and consequences of work done by expert communities as they forge new fields of knowledge and invention. She is the author of Placing Outer Space: An Earthly Ethnography of Other Worlds (Duke 2016) andIn the Land of the Unreal: Virtual and Other Realities in Los Angeles(Duke 2024).

Molly Crockett is a professor at Princeton University in the Department of Psychology and the University Center for Human Values. Their research and teaching examine the psychological impacts of technology, including social media and AI. Crockett's work integrates theory and methods from psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, data science, and science and technology studies. Crockett co-directs the Future Values Initiative, an interdisciplinary program that supports scholarship in the applied ethics of science and technology and builds community among scientists and humanists at Princeton.