The wrong type of fluency and the importance of friction

A few quick observations. 

When talking to MS or PhD students during seminar presentations or other scientific meetings, I sometimes notice that they answer questions about very concrete topics (e.g., mathematical models of memory) quite confidently and fluently. 

However, fluency is primarily verbal in nature. A lot of fluent sequences of words but without a genuine sense of understanding. I wonder if that is partly an LLM effect. All of us use AI these days. When you ask AI to explain something, it does so fluently but not always in the simplest words. 

The only solution to this that I can think of is the old-school pen-and-paper approach to reading papers, writing down equations and struggling to make sense of them, drawing simple pictures of how you think matrices transform through the equations of the models, etc. This is, of course, time-consuming. An LLM will spit out the answers in seconds, and you read the answer and go away with the feeling that you've understood the fluent verbal output, and you mimic this fluency when talking about science yourself. 

Then you discuss the topic with your collaborator or research mentor, and suddenly, you hit a wall. You say you understand it but somehow cannot draw and explain the mechanics of the model on the blackboard. If you don't take corrective action when you experience this, there is a real danger that your research will not be driven by you, and you will never really train to think on your own. A PhD is really the only opportunity you have to train this particular skill. A postdoc is about applying it in a much more independent fashion, and as a faculty member or a member of an industry research team, there is no more time to develop such skills. Since this is time-consuming, and there are many demands on your time as research students, the only solution is some sprints of high intensity and longer workdays. 

This type of deeper learning doesn't happen with an 11a-5p schedule with a long lunch break in between. Unlike other places, we don't put CCTVs or automated timesheets in place. You are expected to be completely responsible for your own learning and driving your own projects. Funding is guaranteed for a limited period of time (defined by the expected program duration). 

So folks, do not skip the struggle. Embrace friction. If you're not struggling to understand papers and simulations that are central to your research, then you're doing something wrong.