This May, 37 researchers from roughly two dozen top universities and tech companies published a paper on ArXiv, arguing that scientists should stop writing papers. Why? Because artificial intelligence needs a different format, and AI’s needs, they say, should be the priority.
“AI agents are becoming first-class participants in research workflows, not tools that assist humans but autonomous contributors that read, reproduce, and extend scientific work. That transition demands infrastructure built around agents from the start,” the authors write in the provocative article, titled “The Last Human-Written Paper.” The paper proposes a replacement, called an “Agent-Native Research Artifact” (ARA), that presents work in a format AI agents can use efficiently. (As an example, the paper itself is online in ARA form.)
Jiachen Liu cofounded the Agent Native Research Lab in May. Jiachen Liu
The growth of AI tools in the research process is not without its critics, and scientists’ opinions about that shift are split. Some evidence shows AI-enabled research could boost individuals’ careers in a discipline but generate fewer new ideas and topics. Still, some biologists have come to see promise in AI as a “co-scientist.”
D. in computer science from the University of Michigan, which she was awarded in 2025. This May, she became a cofounder of the Agent Native Research Lab , an AI-for-science startup in Palo Alto, Calif. She spoke with IEEE Spectrum about the paper and the future of AI in scientific research.
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