--- title: Preserving Research as a Human Activity | daily.dev description: An essay argues that AI's growing capacity to ideate — long considered the essence of research — threatens PhD students most, since ideation was their primary... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/preserving-research-as-a-human-activity-11x0gwrsa twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Preserving Research as a Human Activity | daily.dev og:description: An essay argues that AI's growing capacity to ideate — long considered the essence of research — threatens PhD students most, since ideation was their primary... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/preserving-research-as-a-human-activity-11x0gwrsa og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/11X0gwrsA.png og:image:alt: Preserving Research as a Human Activity og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Preserving Research as a Human Activity **[Stefanos Baziotis](https://daily.dev/sources/sbaziotis)** · 18 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary An essay argues that AI's growing capacity to ideate — long considered the essence of research — threatens PhD students most, since ideation was their primary bargaining chip in an otherwise utilitarian academic hierarchy. Drawing on pieces by Karu Sankaralingam and Levente Littvay, the author contrasts research with chess: chess survived AI superiority because it was never about utility, but research institutions are fundamentally utilitarian (tied to grants and money), so once AI can generate more utility than humans, the institution will discard human researchers. The proposed long-term fix is to reimagine research as a non-utilitarian, hobbyist human activity, similar to how chess is now played for enjoyment rather than capability. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [AI doesn’t need to replace humans to weaken human capability](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-doesn-t-need-to-replace-humans-to-weaken-human-capability-296acecsh) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai](https://daily.dev/tags/ai), [#career](https://daily.dev/tags/career) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/preserving-research-as-a-human-activity-11x0gwrsa) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Preserving Research as a Human Activity","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/preserving-research-as-a-human-activity-11x0gwrsa","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/preserving-research-as-a-human-activity-11x0gwrsa"},"datePublished":"2026-09-02T02:54:24.694Z","dateModified":"2026-09-13T20:11:54.227Z","description":"An essay argues that AI's growing capacity to ideate — long considered the essence of research — threatens PhD students most, since ideation was their primary...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/8ef36b34e5a205539143b613f57a31d8?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/8ef36b34e5a205539143b613f57a31d8?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Stefanos Baziotis","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Stefanos Baziotis","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--hcPPUFvk--/f_auto/v1734606886/logos/sbaziotis","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/sbaziotis"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/preserving-research-as-a-human-activity-11x0gwrsa","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"ai,career","timeRequired":"PT18M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Stefanos Baziotis","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/sbaziotis"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Preserving Research as a Human Activity"}]} ```