Why a PhD in AI Now?

April 7, 2026

Why a PhD in AI Now?

I recently heard back from friend who works in technology – and whose opinion I respect very much – about my decision to leave my comfortable job as a Product Owner and developer to study HCAI at MILA. I hope he doesn’t mind that I share his position here. I felt that in responding to him I was able to capture something of what drove me to pursue a PhD in the first place. That seemed like appropriate material to put down here.

His very reasonable message was the following:

“I put out responding to you for a few days because texting is such a poor medium and I’m certainly out of place telling a brilliant man what to do with his life [editorial: shucks]. I am concerned you might be coming about 10 years late to the party and may set yourself out to graduate just in time for the third AI winter. The current economics of the AI business are quite dire…”

Here is what I found myself saying in response:

“Fair points, all of them… I’ve considered this a bit like diving directly into a tornado. I agree that the industry is massively overhyped and in for a rude awakening, a major correction.

I also think that the tech industry is undergoing a massive shift. Code isn’t disappearing but its nature is changing. Natural language isn’t going away as a way to interact with technology. Whether on servers or on edge, I think that’s around to stay. And the idea of agentic technology, computers that plan and take action – that has to be handled responsibly, not from a cybersecurity persepctive or a technical debt perspective, but from a cognitive science perspective.

My interest is mostly in how people can work with machines in a way that preserves human agency, their intellectual rigour and fitness, and that leverages their human experience. The biggest threat to our work [as tech workers], aside from being replaced outright, is cognitive rot.

Actually my initial idea was to research how agents can help people to be more creative. In the same way a music producer can help bring out the beest in a recording artist. Personally, I’d love to have a tool like that. Something to help keep me motivated, organized, challenge me to pursue weird ideas, etc. It’s changing a bigfrom that, but that was the impetus.”