AI in Academia IV: AI as a Tool not a Replacement for Thinking: Working with AI in

REGISTER: AI in Academia IV

Target group: Doctoral researchers and early-career academics, University of Graz

Language: English

Description: The rise of AI-powered systems has transformed our world at a remarkable pace. But does this mean that everything has become easier, better and faster — including academic research and writing?
 

Not necessarily.
 

Superficial answers, factual errors and hallucinations, concerns about the protection of sensitive research data — these are experiences many doctoral researchers and academics report after their first encounters with ChatGPT, Claude & Co.
Others, out of fear of these risks, prefer to avoid AI altogether.
This two-day AI-Writing Retreat is designed as a valuable space for both: structured input on the most important AI-related topics in academic research, combined with hands-on practice sessions in which participants can try things out directly and bring their individual questions and uncertainties to an expert.
 

In the AI-Writing Retreat, doctoral researchers and early-career academics learn to use generative AI in a reflective, critical, and ethically sound way — without ever relinquishing responsibility for their own scholarly work. The workshop is open to participants with little or no prior experience with AI in an academic context, as well as to those who already work with AI regularly and want to do so more deliberately and effectively.
 

Program Part IV: AI as a Tool not a Replacement for Thinking: Working with AI in Academic Research (Ideal for: Intermediate Level | Advanced Level)

Experienced AI users face a particular — and often unnoticed — challenge: the smoother collaboration with AI works, the faster the boundaries between "AI as a tool" and "AI as a guiding authority" begin to blur. This session is aimed especially at those who already use AI regularly in academic research and want to ensure they retain intellectual responsibility and leadership of their project. We take a critical look at current AI tools and workflows for
researchers, asking which tools are genuinely suited to which tasks. We then go deeper: examining particular risks such as AI sycophancy, confirmation anchoring, and cognitive offloading — all of which can quietly undermine core academic competencies and research quality — and developing concrete strategies for using AI as an instrument to sharpen, rather than replace, our own academic thinking.

Trainer: Dr. Claudia Macho has been working as a writing instructor and coach in the academic field for 12 years. In her role, she focuses especially on supporting doctoral students and early-career researchers in developing and refining their academic writing skills. She teaches at various universities in Austria and abroad and shares her expertise through practice-oriented courses, workshops and coaching. (For more information, visit www.claudiamacho.at)