---
title: Is AI a Good Research Assistant?
link: https://www.computerenhance.com/p/is-ai-a-good-research-assistant
source: computerenhance-com
published: 2026-09-02T19:41:44Z
updated: 2026-09-02T19:41:44Z
first_seen: 2026-09-19T21:30:23.395188495Z
summary: Listen now | Recently, I gave a talk called The Root of the Root of All Evil. Like The Big OOPs, it was a research-intensive talk, so Demetri and I decided it might serve as a good spot test for how well the frontier models do on historical research.
content: extracted
html: 2026-09-02-is-ai-a-good-research-assistant.html
preview:
  file: 2026-09-02-is-ai-a-good-research-assistant.preview-e5b33838e4cd.webp
  width: 256
  height: 128
  color: '#9d9679'
images:
- source: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!8l3n!,w_1200,h_600,c_fill,f_jpg,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd3684b35-a74f-45be-9167-be84b4ab77e9_1920x1080.png
  original:
    file: 2026-09-02-is-ai-a-good-research-assistant.image-ebb68567d4ae.jpg
    width: 1200
    height: 600
  color: '#f8fad7'
extra:
  audio_url: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/213743581/4c0eca6027e44f8c6127802366f5c91e.mp3
  duration_seconds: 4171
---

Recently, I gave a talk called *[The Root of the Root of All Evil](https://www.computerenhance.com/p/theroot)*. Like *[The Big OOPs](https://www.computerenhance.com/p/the-big-oops-anatomy-of-a-thirty)*, it was a research-intensive talk, so Demetri and I decided it might serve as a good spot test for how well the frontier models do on historical research.

In this episode of *Wading Through AI*, Demetri runs the major models on a query designed to reproduce the top-level research necessary for my talk. We evaluate how well they did, and speculate on the usefulness of current AIs for this kind of research.

*Demetri has provided a download of the research reports on his website. If you’d like to check them out yourself, you can [download them here](http://demetrispanos.com/casey_TROTROAE_research_AI.zip) .*

*As always, the art for the thumbnail, podcast cover, and banner of Wading Through AI were all hand-drawn by [Anna Rettberg](https://x.com/aerettberg) in her signature style. We do not currently use generative AI here at [Molly Rocket](https://mollyrocket.com/) .*