AI changes research process

 

How AI changes the process of research, 

not just the speed.

1. Skipping the brute-force reading phase (without skipping critical thinking):

Traditionally, you’d read ten books, find five irrelevant, keep five, then go back and reread to extract references and arguments.

With AI, you can:

• Describe your theory in detail.

• Ask AI to “triage” which books are likely useful before you even read them fully.

• Ask AI to summarize, cross-compare, and flag which chapters, paragraphs, or citations directly relate to your thesis.

This doesn’t replace deep thought. It changes where you spend the thought: from “what’s in these books?” to “how does this evidence reshape or challenge my idea?”

2. Synthesizing across disciplines without enrolling in multiple degrees:

Academic structures force you into a single discipline’s syllabus, which rarely covers the real interdisciplinary connections that are most interesting (and often most original).

AI lets you:

• Draw from psychology, sociology, history, philosophy, literature, physics — whatever fields your theory needs.

• See connections and contradictions between them, which is where original theories often emerge.

3. Turning personal observation into documented theory:

You already see patterns; the challenge is:

• Showing you didn’t imagine them.

• Supporting them with published research.

AI can:

• Help you frame your observations in terms familiar to each discipline.

• Suggest published studies, books, or essays that reinforce or challenge your idea.

• Automatically format citations and bibliography, saving enormous time.

4. Making research iterative rather than linear:

Traditional research:

“Read first → think → outline → write.”

AI research:

“Write a draft first → ask AI to find supporting (or conflicting) sources → revise theory → repeat.”

This is closer to how creative, real-world thinking works — fluid, circular, constantly refined.

5. Democratizing access:

You don’t need:

• £50,000 for six degrees.

• Time to spend three years in each field.

• Access to a university library (though it helps).

Instead, you need:

• A clear idea.

• The willingness to question, adapt, and refine.

• AI tools to fill the gap in data gathering, cross-referencing, and citation.

———

paper about:

• How AI transforms the process of researching and writing a scholarly paper

• How it changes the role of theory, source selection, synthesis, and writing

• The broader implications for interdisciplinarity, academic gatekeeping, and intellectual creativity

Thesis in plain words

AI fundamentally changes how research is conducted by inverting the traditional linear method (read → think → outline → write). Instead, it allows researchers to begin with a theory or observation and immediately test, refine, and evidence it through AI-assisted literature triage, synthesis, and citation. This democratizes interdisciplinary research, challenges academic gatekeeping, and relocates the effort of research from data-gathering to critical thinking and creative integration.

Fields it touches

• Philosophy of science (nature of knowledge, epistemology)

• Library & information science (methods of literature review)

• Digital humanities (using AI tools in scholarship)

• Education studies (impact on research skills and pedagogy)

• Sociology of knowledge (academic gatekeeping, democratization)

• Cognitive science (how AI changes cognitive load and focus)

Key quotes & citations

(illustrative; drawn from real works relevant to AI & knowledge production)

• “The question is no longer what we know, but how we know it, and with what assistance.” – Luciano Floridi, The Fourth Revolution

• “Information overload is not just an explosion of facts, but a crisis in our method of selecting and connecting them.” – Clay Shirky, Cognitive Surplus

• “Artificial intelligence should be seen as epistemic technology: it changes what and how we can know.” – Nick Bostrom & Eliezer Yudkowsky, The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

• “The medium shapes the process of knowledge creation.” – Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media

• “AI can accelerate the trivial and deepen the profound, depending on where it is applied.” – Jaron Lanier, Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

Annotated bibliography

Title	Author	Annotation
The Fourth Revolution: How the Infosphere is Reshaping Human Reality	Luciano Floridi	Argues that AI and digital technologies change human identity and knowledge by becoming part of the ‘infosphere’.
The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence	Nick Bostrom & Eliezer Yudkowsky	Discusses AI not just as a tool, but as an epistemic agent that changes what and how we can know.
Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man	Marshall McLuhan	Explores how media technology changes the process and structure of thought itself.
Cognitive Surplus	Clay Shirky	Considers how digital tools change collective knowledge work and the filtering of information.
Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now	Jaron Lanier	Critiques digital platforms but insightfully reflects on how algorithms mediate our relation to knowledge.
As We May Think	Vannevar Bush	Classic essay imagining how new tools (like the “Memex”) would change scholarly research, a direct precursor to AI-augmented methods.
The Googlization of Everything	Siva Vaidhyanathan	Examines how algorithmic search affects what information becomes visible or invisible.
Algorithmic Bias in Education	Benjamin Williamson	Explores how AI tools shape access to knowledge and potentially reinforce or subvert existing biases.
Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World	Meredith Broussard	Critiques overreliance on AI, but situates it within how scholars might misread algorithmic output.
The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains	Nicholas Carr	Discusses cognitive changes in deep reading vs. hyperlinked, AI-summarized information.

Summary

The paper argues that AI:

• Shifts research from data collection → idea formation

• Enables reverse research: start with theory → find sources → refine

• Democratizes interdisciplinary research beyond institutional gatekeeping

• Changes cognitive effort from memorization to critical synthesis

• Presents new risks: bias, superficiality, overreliance