Many students who are just now embarking on a PhD in AI are understandably anxious. It feels like our field is zooming forward ever faster. Our clever methods are often surpassed before they are published. Our deep insights seem less critical to frontier lab progress. AI is automating aspects of the research process that used to require years of specialized training.
70 years of AI hype
Quoting from Olivia Guest et al. (2025) "Against the Uncritical Adoption of AI Technologies in Academia."
The Era of Experience & The Age of Design: Richard S. Sutton, Upper Bound 2025
Mathematicians are grappling with the possibility that AI might eclipse them
I talked to 20 mathematicians about rapid AI progress in their field.
Deep Research, information vs. insight, and the nature of science
What AI will accelerate in the scientific process, what it cannot do, and how we can prepare for new manners of scientific investigation.
AI Isn't as Powerful as We Think | Hannah Fry
An AI state of the union: We’ve passed the inflection point & dark factories are coming
Fulcrum - Leverage for Discovery
We place AI engineers with research labs working on hard scientific problems.
AI | 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey
84% of respondents are using or planning to use AI tools in their development process, an increase over last year (76%). This year we can see 51% of professional developers use AI tools daily.
AI is getting too advanced
Luiza Jarovsky, PhD on Twitter / X
🚨 University professors have been saying AI is completely destroying learning and that we'll soon have an AI-powered, semi-illiterate workforce. Here's a glimpse into the educational apocalypse:"Sarah, a freshman at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, said she first used… pic.twitter.com/Rq6zUi5mRp— Luiza Jarovsky, PhD (@LuizaJarovsky) May 6, 2026
The People Who Will Thrive in the AI Age
What will differentiate people is not how smart they are but their relationship to mental effort.
Resetting on engineering expectations in the age of AI
I’m accepting new sponsorships for The Modern Leader for 2026. If you’re interested (or you think your company may be interested), you can learn more here.
science in the age of AI
What does it mean to be a human researcher in the age of powerful AI?
On the Value of Doing a PhD in the Age of AI
Applied Pure Mathematics
What Next for Academia?
The Age of Wonders and Terrors
How Do We Talk about LLMs?
Culture Becomes a Dark Forest