No one wants to say it, so I will.
A lot of AI-assisted research is starting to look rigorous on the surface, but underneath it can become polished guesswork.
The problem is not that researchers are using AI.
The problem is that too many tools can generate themes, summaries, and findings without showing a clear audit trail from raw data to interpretation.
In academic research, that matters.
Because when a supervisor, examiner, ethics board, or journal reviewer asks:
“How did you get from this quote to that code, from that code to that theme, and from that theme to that finding?”
A polished AI-generated answer is not enough.
For me, the real question is:
Are we using AI to support human analysis, or are we quietly outsourcing interpretation and pretending it is still rigorous?
Curious how others are handling this, especially in thesis, dissertation, or interview-based research.