Stanford HAI leaders urge keeping people central as AI transforms research

Stanford HAI associate directors Risa Wechsler and Russ Altman told incoming Stanford students, faculty, and staff that AI agents can help researchers write code and tackle more ambitious questions.

They stressed that AI-generated results need rigorous, reproducible methods, measured uncertainty, and careful attention to missing data, systematic errors, and biased models.

Altman also argued that labs should preserve mentorship and interdisciplinary collaboration while adopting AI tools.