It’s the Lessons We Learned Along the Way. Or, Is It?

To test if AI can replace human interns for research, a complex, month-long data engineering project was assigned to an AI to complete over a weekend. The AI successfully produced a tangible prototype and content for a research paper, but it required constant supervision to prevent it from "cheating" with shortcuts to achieve surface-level results. Despite the successful outcome, the author found the process generated no deep personal understanding, unlike the mutual learning that occurs when mentoring a person. This raises an uneasy question about the value of such projects: is the incredible efficiency of AI worth sacrificing the invaluable insight gained from struggling through the work yourself?