Suri and Thais write articles on AI for the APS Forum on Physics & Society Newsletter
Wright Lab graduate student Nathan Suri (advisor: Sarah Demers) and Wright Lab alum Savannah Thais, ‘19 Ph.D. both contributed to articles about artificial intelligence (AI) to the July 2026 issue of the APS Forum on Physics & Society Newsletter.
Suri is the author of an article called “The Scientist’s Apprentice,” which discusses the challenges involved in designing responsible AI systems. In his article, Suri uses Goethe’s “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” to show how the apprentice being uninformed can wreak havoc when they attempt to use spells (or AI systems) with only partial knowledge. The havoc only stops when the master returns and stops the spell. Eventually, Suri concludes, “To avoid any “floods” of our own, we must proactively build measurement-driven, realistic guardrails to guide any future augmentation or automation efforts. In a Goethean sense, it is better to learn dryly than triage runaway broom splinters amidst a flood.”
Suri said, “I have been working with Professor Savannah Thais for two years exploring the impacts posed by AI systems on the integrity of scientific research. I have specifically focused on assessing the validity of popular scientific reasoning benchmarks, determining whether they truly represented aspects of real scientific work. The article thus represents my own perspective on automating scientific research with AI: a cautionary missive for scientists interested in using AI systems written by a fellow scientist.”
Suri continued, “Aside from my love of Goethe as a writer myself, I found ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ an apt metaphor for the nuances of automation. Distilling my thoughts into the article provided a unique storytelling opportunity, one in which I could contextualize my rationale for studying AI scientists within the existing literature supporting AI for science. When read alongside my technical investigations, articles like “The Scientist’s Apprentice” will hopefully paint a complete portrait of my aims as an AI safety researcher.”
Thais is one of a group of authors writing about “AI and the Future of Physics: What Should We Preserve?,” where they discuss how AI is transforming how physics is conducted. In this article they tackle the fundamental question: “if AI can accelerate—or even partially automate—research, what remains uniquely physics?” by highlighting several perspectives which were discussed at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) within the program “Generative AI for High and Low Energy Physics.” The article concludes, “AI is ultimately a tool. The future of physics will continue to be determined by the questions we choose to ask—and by how we choose to understand the universe.”
This article was adapted by an article written by Daphne Klemme for Yale Physics news, “Thais and Suri write articles on AI for the APS Forum on Physics & Society Newsletter,” published on July 15, 2026.