Episode overview

Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming part of the research landscape—from finding and making sense of literature to supporting academic writing and feedback. But how can researchers use AI productively without losing ownership of their ideas or compromising the critical thinking at the heart of research?

In this episode, Heledd speaks with Dr Marc-Oliver Gewaltig, co-founder and CEO of Thesify, about what a responsible relationship between researchers and AI might look like.

They discuss how AI can support different stages of academic writing, the importance of transparency about its contributions, and how it may change the skills researchers need. Marc-Oliver also explains why human judgement, intellectual ownership and subject expertise must remain central to good research.

In this episode

• Marc-Oliver’s journey from physics and computational neuroscience to robotics, AI and entrepreneurship
• The challenges researchers and supervisors face when reviewing and developing academic writing
• How AI can provide feedback on manuscripts and support researchers through the drafting process
• Using AI to encourage researchers to develop and communicate their own ideas rather than placing the writing process on “autopilot”
• How AI could support conversations and manage expectations between researchers and supervisors
• Why transparency, AI provenance and clear records of individual contributions matter
• How AI may change the skills researchers need and why deliberate experimentation is essential
• Intellectual ownership, plagiarism and the risks of allowing AI to generate ideas
• What AI cannot replace: human judgement, subject expertise and scientific communication

About Marc-Oliver

Dr Marc-Oliver Gewaltig is co-founder and CEO of Thesify, a startup developing responsible AI tools for scientists and students. He has worked at the intersection of neuroscience, robotics and artificial intelligence for almost three decades.

He was Principal Scientist at Honda Research Institute Europe and Senior Group Leader at EPFL, where he co-directed the Neurorobotics subproject of the Human Brain Project. Before founding Thesify, he was the founding CEO of HeyScience.

Find out more

• Thesify: https://www.thesify.ai/
• Marc-Oliver Gewaltig on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gewaltig/
• Thesify on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thesify-ai
• Thesify Substack: https://thesify.substack.com/