Publish or Perish, With or Without AI?
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools are rapidly reshaping how academic research is conceived, produced, and evaluated, raising questions regarding authorship, peer review, graduate training, and the preservation of scholarly skills. The human factors and ergonomics (HFE) community, with its expertise in automation reliance, trust, and human-centered system design, is uniquely positioned to examine this disruption. This panel brings together HFE academics spanning career stages and perspectives on AI to discuss the trade-offs of integrating AI across the academic research cycle. Moderated discussion will address the boundaries of authorship in iterative human-AI collaboration, implications for the peer review ecosystem, risks of cognitive atrophy and deskilling, and adaptations needed in doctoral training. Attendees will gain a richer vocabulary for navigating the dilemma that now defines academia: publish or perish, with or without AI.
Authors
- John D. Lee (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9808-2160)
- Linda Ng Boyle (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3845-4668)
- Areen Alsaid (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2852-9750)
- Christopher D. Wickens (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6789-4446)
- Brandon J. Pitts (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6232-6028)
- Jackie Cha (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8136-2094)
Institutions
- University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
- Purdue University West Lafayette (US)
- University of Michigan–Dearborn (US)
- New York University (US)
- Colorado State University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting
- Published
- 2026-07-30
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1177/10711813261475214
- Primary Topic
- Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00