Too pessimistic to the point of being apocalyptic. AI can be used as an editorial assistant, research assistant, and copy editor. This is a huge benefit alread

Too pessimistic to the point of being apocalyptic. AI can be used as an editorial assistant, research assistant, and copy editor. This is a huge benefit already. AI systems are also almost brilliant in helping to tighten text. Try compressing a 1500 word discussion down to 750 words for an article in Nature. I agree that using AI to write text from scratch is lazy ghost writing—-but not the end of the world. It may be a huge problem in undergraduate teaching, but there are also some hidden up-sides. I definitely think AI should be used to pre-review NIH grant applications to help both the applicant, NIH, and reviewers. My institution’s “pre-award” team checks the budget, check compliance with admin policies, and a few other details. They have no capacity to help with the science. AI systems can be highly effective as surrogate pre-review reviewers. They perform at least as well as the hard-pressed unpaid human reviewers who spend 6 hours with you application if you are very lucky, and who will definitely not be perusing your latest 10 papers. AI can do both in minutes. I give my applications to Claude with a prompt of this general format: “You are a grumpy and highly stressed scientist who should be working on your own research but you have nobly decided to support NIH by reviewing 6 applications, each of which will take you at least 4 hours to review and another 2 hours to write-up half-fairly. Your job as reviewer today is to enumerate what you see as theoretical and experimental deficiencies of each of the three aims and sub-aims. List at three problems per aim. Having generated this list of deficiencies, then go through the application carefully and see if the applicants actually already addressed your concerns. Did you miss their pitfalls section or “alternative strategies”? Writing a grant application is just another form of REAL science. I learn a ton every time I write (or help write) a grant application. It is more thoughtful in some important ways than DOING science and even than WRITING UP science.