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Quanta Magazine ·Future-gazing

In an Age of AI, a Physicist Seeks What Endures

by Rebecca Boyle

Published 2026-09-03 13:35:59+00:00

If a machine can answer any question, what happens to the conversations that start with not knowing?

0:00 / 11:59 · Narrator Sulafat

Context

In an interview published on 3 September 2026, Quanta Magazine speaks with Yale physicist Sarah Demers about a quiet tension in her field. Artificial intelligence is already accelerating particle physics, writing code and sorting through millions of data points faster than any human could. Yet Demers draws a hard line at using language models for her own thinking or communication. The conversation pauses on a practical question for the future of science: if machines remove the friction of struggling with a problem, do researchers lose the very process that teaches them how to think?

Show notes

An interview with a particle physicist about the practical and ethical effects of artificial intelligence on scientific research. The discussion covers how AI tools are currently used to run experiments and process old data, while raising concerns about intellectual property and proper attribution. It also outlines how these technologies could change the basic skills required to train future scientists.

Read on Quanta Magazine →