The curse of AI in higher education and research
I have had many frustrating experiences with mentees and others who are smart but overrely on AI for their work these days. The reliance on AI for coding is not the issue. The problem is that they set their human brains (which are typically quite adept!) aside when they work with AI, and over time, this sets in real rot of critical and deep thinking. When candidates interview confidently and answer hard interview questions, a second round comprising a data analysis challenge usually reveals the issues. During this second interview, I ask conceptual questions. Only if the applicant has taken some minimal effort to understand the code and the concepts involved in the analysis and has thought a bit about the cognitive questions driving the data analysis challenge can they pass the bar for entry to the lab. Ten years ago, most people with master's degrees (and sometimes research experience in the same domain!) from IITs and other reputed colleges and universities would have been able t...