The Illusion of Expertise: How AI Enables Academic Success Without Learning

As AI agents become capable of handling research tasks end-to-end, they create a dangerous illusion of competence—students can produce publishable results and impress supervisors while never actually learning their field. This invisible gap between apparent achievement and genuine understanding threatens the long-term quality of expertise across academia and industry, where future generations inherit AI-dependent workers rather than deep practitioners who've struggled with real problems.