3 items with this tag.
A keynote for the 44th Annual Conference of the Physiotherapy Research Society. Argues that AI is now in contact with every part of the research process, and that the useful question is no longer whether researchers are using AI, but what they are using it for. Uses the PhD as a worked example to explore the difference between the artefact and the person becoming capable through the process, and argues that as AI becomes more capable, specifically human contributions — research taste, evaluative judgement, and the capacity to set direction — become more valuable, not less.
Research taste is the cultivated capacity to recognise which problems are worth pursuing, which collaborators will amplify your work, and which under-explored areas have genuine leverage — before you can fully prove any of those judgements.
AI has disrupted doctoral education in two ways: the immediate question of AI-assisted writing, and the deeper question of what the PhD means when AI can conduct research from scratch. This post argues that the thesis was always a proxy for the person; evidence of an identity shift, not the thing being assessed in its own right.