Why I may ‘hire’ AI instead of a graduate student

Ethics of Replacing Students with AI

• Many commenters see the idea as morally wrong, dehumanizing, and embarrassing to state publicly.
• Some argue it reflects a mindset that values productivity metrics over human development and social responsibility.
• Others appreciate the candor: the dilemma is real and worth surfacing even if the conclusion is troubling.

Academic Roles, Teaching vs Research, and Public Funding

• Several note that publicly funded universities have an explicit mandate to teach and develop people, not just produce papers.
• There is debate over whether teaching and research should be decoupled; some say the skill sets differ, others argue effective research training requires active researchers.
• European perspectives (Germany, France, UK) contrast with US-oriented assumptions; in many places, professors are explicitly “research and teaching” staff, not just PI–managers.

Talent Pipeline and Juniors

• Strong concern that avoiding novices will hollow out the pipeline of future senior researchers and engineers.
• Counterpoint: firms and labs can simply poach people trained elsewhere; this already happens.
• Some predict governments or funders may need to mandate or incentivize junior hiring/training, or tie it to grants.

AI Capabilities and Limitations

• Skeptics say current AI is still worse than an average freshman for serious research work, prone to basic errors and hallucinated citations.
• Supporters see enough current utility to meaningfully change workflows, especially for literature search and drafting.
• Many suggest a hybrid model: hire grads and explicitly empower them to use AI, rather than framing it as either/or.

Incentives, Funding, and “Publish or Perish”

• Widely shared view that perverse incentives—paper counts, grants, trendy topics—drive professors toward quick wins and away from long-term mentorship.
• Some hope AI will commoditize paper-writing enough that publication metrics lose importance, forcing better evaluation criteria.

Human Value, Mentorship, and Long-Term Impact

• Commenters stress that students are not just labor; they become future collaborators, carriers of ideas, and a major source of personal fulfillment for academics.
• Several predict that in hindsight, uplifting people will matter more than marginal extra publications.