On May 8, 2026, Sir Bashir M. Al-Hashimi, Vice President of Research and Innovation at King’s College London, Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and Member of the Academia Europaea, was invited to the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) to deliver a guest lecture at the 437^th session of the SUSTech Lecture Series. His special lecture was titled “The Era of Large Language Models: Reexamining the Role of Humans in Scientific Discovery.” In addition, the event was simultaneously live-streamed online by Robot Technique and Application.

Prof. Al-Hashimi, from the perspective of both cutting-edge science and academic management, deeply analyzed the tremendous potential and inherent challenges of artificial intelligence in reshaping scientific research work. In his speech, Prof. Al-Hashimi emphasized that although large language models demonstrate astonishing speed and efficiency in performing specific scientific tasks, they themselves cannot generate absolute originality out of nothing. Scientific breakthroughs still heavily rely on the domain expertise and critical thinking accumulated by humans through long-term research. In today’s era of large language models, the core value of human scholars lies in serving as irreplaceable detectors of hallucinations and conductors of logical verification. Only by consistently placing human creativity and responsibility at the heart of scientific discovery, allowing humans to determine the value of research topics and lead ethical risk assessments, can we ensure that technological advancement resonates in harmony with research ethics and sustainable development.

Prof. Al-Hashimi shared scientific practice strategies for human-AI collaboration with faculty and students; strategies that transition from basic information retrieval to higher-level co-creation of knowledge. He gave a detailed presentation on the “RISEN Collaboration Framework” (Roles, Instructions, Steps, End Goal, and Narrowing). This framework guides researchers on how to direct AI output toward original academic insights with Ph.D.-depth logical reasoning, through structured steps such as setting multidimensional perspectives and reverse-engineering hypotheses.

During the interactive session, more than a dozen alumni from King’s College London, and faculty and students from SUSTech, enthusiastically asked questions. In response to highly focused concerns such as “how to improve the ability to detect large model hallucinations,” “how to use AI to efficiently produce high-impact results,” and “whether large models could induce research thinking laziness,” Prof. Al-Hashimi provided detailed answers based on his own experience.

On the morning of the lecture day, Prof. Al-Hashimi also visited the SUSTech-King’s School of Medicine and held discussions and exchanges. Attending the discussion were SUSTech Council Chairperson Hong JIANG; Prof. Songling WANG, Dean of SUSTech Medical School; Prof. Jian S. DAI, Dean of SUSTech Institute of Robotics; as well as Pengfei WANG, Secretary of the Joint Party Committee of the School of Medicine at SUSTech; Thérèse Hesketh, Executive Dean of the SUSTech-King’s School of Medicine; and Deputy Dean Jian ZHANG, among others. Both sides conducted in-depth discussions on topics such as deepening strategic cooperation between the two universities, promoting the high-quality development of the joint medical school, and interdisciplinary innovation in medicine and engineering, further consolidating the foundation for potential cooperation in talent cultivation and scientific research innovation.