By the time her comprehensive exams rolled around in August 2024, Adriana Ivich had done nearly everything she could to prepare herself. To officially become a PhD student in biomedical informatics at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Ivich needed to present her proposed research project and then meet with her committee for a closed-door grilling.
Illustration: The Project Twins
By the time her comprehensive exams rolled around in August 2024, Adriana Ivich had done nearly everything she could to prepare herself. To officially become a PhD student in biomedical informatics at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Ivich needed to present her proposed research project and then meet with her committee for a closed-door grilling.
“It’s definitely one of the hardest times to be a PhD student,” Ivich says. “I spent months — years really — preparing, but you still don’t know what they’re going to ask you."
She could make an informed guess, however. Months before, she’d poured the biographies and publications of her five committee members into ChatGPT, a generative AI chatbot developed by OpenAI in San Francisco, California, and used it to create digital simulacrums of each person. She then fed the mimics her research proposal and asked the program to respond as her committee might, asking detailed questions and identifying gaps in her knowledge. The actual meeting “went pretty much like ChatGPT said it would,” says Ivich, who passed with flying colours.
Her experience highlights just one of the many imaginative ways in which students are using generative AI. Unlike the ‘early days’ of two years ago, when using AI meant summarizing a paper or outlining an essay, students are now leaning into the tools’ ability to emulate human connection, turning chatbots into podcast hosts, language tutors, professors and even personal trainers.