I watch the AI hypelords proclaim the end of human writing every day on X and YouTube, while I’ve never felt more confident of the prosaic similitude of Claude’s responses. It’s hard not to be intimidated by reports of jobs being taken by AI and watching truly powerful automations happen on your computer. If these tools can actually produce a half decent draft in 30 seconds, what good does it do to me to agonize over 60 minutes to even get this first paragraph out on paper? With powerful, super fast lookup, AI truly feels smart as a research assistant unearthing things that took you hours to find on Google. But research is not just finding things, it’s also verifying them, which used to be difficult, but as prompts got better and AI agents self-corrected, it’s hardly an issue anymore. If you manage to publish with AI hallucinated references in 2026, you’re just lazy or don’t know enough about agentic AI. At this point, maybe my work can be replaced by AI. It is a valid fear I’m living through every day.
It’s not the first time I’ve felt replicable though. As a young postdoc, I once met with a bunch of Stanford scholars for lunch at a conference. Their entitlement aside, I’ve rarely felt less accomplished than listening to their publication records and job market strategies as I was out on the job market myself back then. Surely, I would not have a chance at a coveted professor job if that’s the competition. These people made me feel small despite my unfettered work ethic.
Little did I know back then that this fear was just infused by feeling judged by them and by my future superiors. Let’s face it. As researchers, we live in a constant state of judgment. There’s always a dean, panel chair, VP of Product, hiring committee, or worst of all, our inner reviewer passing judgment on our abilities. There are always gatekeepers that we’re facing. The fear of replaceability is never abstract.
The fear is fuelled by the abstraction though. Thinking that AI is replacing you is vague enough to not take action. The fuzziness is comfort and catastrophe. But the gatekeepers are real. Someone you respect or look up to will look at your work and possibly decide it’s interchangeable and treat you accordingly. Peer review is really everywhere. And it’s often done by a small handful of humans with budgets, reputations, and a short attention span.
Here’s a 5-step process to become irreplaceable to gatekeepers:
- Know your exact fear. The best way to defeat a possible rejection from these humans is to understand your fear voiced as their judgment. Who is potentially rejecting you on what grounds? Once you identified this, you can rebut it.
- Unearth your proof. Remind yourself and them of everything you have already written. Everything from grants to stories of your supervision. If you don’t have lots of proof of your work, build it.
- Translate your proof for the exact gatekeeper. Do this exercise without AI to train that translation muscle. What’s the shortest form in which you can present your existing proof to gatekeepers? Think it through. Deliver the value in a format that can be consumed in minutes.
- Don’t wait for approval. Publish this when YOU feel it’s ready. Set yourself a short deadline to not overthink this and trust your judgment, knowing that you can always iterate on it.
- Put it in front of gatekeepers. Whether you’ve written an email that lands in your dean’s inbox or you’ve written a LinkedIn post that shows up in their feed, you’ve produced visible value.
Repeating this process makes you better at it. And repeating the production of such artifacts in public compounds for you. Repetition is the antidote to replaceability. But you have to repeat the right process.
The crucial thing you can’t forget here is that whatever you write, should be based on your work. On the research you’ve done or vetted. You have a distinct point of view. AI does not. It represents the amalgamation of everyone’ point of view. So, keep your stance and knowledge and question outputs.
When everything tastes like bland cauliflower, people are dying to find a spicy carrot in their veggies. Be that spicy carrot. Lean into your uniqueness, but be aware of the arguments of your gatekeepers of why your work might not be good enough. Convince them otherwise. Imagine their claims and challenge them. Can you use AI in that process? Absolutely. It’s a fast research assistant and can check sources with the right prompts and plugins. But should you let it turn your carrot into a cauliflower? Absolutely not.
Don’t wait for people to certify your work. Trust your gut over automation.
You don’t need permission to sell your competence to the world.