New Delhi, April 16 -- Only a few years ago, AI seemed like merely a nice toy: a chatbot that simulated intelligence by assembling complete sentences in response to users' prompts but that ultimately wasn't much more sophisticated than an advanced search engine.

Yet now, it has proven to be an incredible tool that can perform tasks I never thought would be possible in my lifetime.

For example, I have used AI to locate online datasets, manipulate them, carry out statistical tests and produce polished tables and charts, complete with sensible commentary on what the results mean, how they relate to academic literature and the strengths and weaknesses of the analysis. In less than half an hour, AI can do a job that would take a research ass...