Are Researchers Being Replaced by Artificial Intelligence?

Summary

Position piece arguing that replacement of researchers is already underway, not as disappearance but as a shift from researcher-as-creator to researcher-as-curator: as agents generate hypotheses, papers and reviews, humans keep accountability while losing intellectual ownership. Frames the danger as humans ceasing to genuinely understand the science they sign. Useful conceptual vocabulary for the deskilling / cognitive-offloading strand of an IS argument.

Contribution

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Method

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Relevance to RISE

Surfaced by the 2026-08-29 literature sweep as a medium-priority candidate for the RISE knowledge base (angle: human–AI research collaboration). Verified against: arXiv abstract page opened 2026-08-29 (title, 4 authors, submitted 14 Apr 2026, full abstract read)

Critique / open questions

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Key quotes

A Nature survey from 2023 involving 1,600 researchers shows that scientists are ``concerned, as well as excited, by the increasing use of artificial-intelligence tools in research.'' This tension frames our central question: Are researchers being replaced by artificial intelligence? (abstract)

We argue that replacement is already underway-not as disappearance, but as a shift from researcher-as-creator to researcher-as-curator. (abstract)