After Tools, Problems Remain: From the Impact of Finite Element Software to Human Growth in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Previous editorials of this journal have discussed academic lineage, intelligent tools, research criteria, and disciplinary direction. After these discussions, a more fundamental question remains: when tools become increasingly powerful, can human researchers still preserve their ability to ask questions, make judgments, and grow? From the perspective of mechanics, artificial intelligence is not the first powerful tool revolution. The finite element method, computers, and engineering software once liberated mechanicians from tedious mathematical calculations and enabled complex structures, boundaries, and loading conditions to become computationally tractable. Yet they also reshaped the identity, confidence, and institutional space of mechanics. In many universities and engineering schools, independent mechanics, applied mechanics, or engineering mechanics programs were compressed, merged, or marginalized during broader disciplinary reorganizations. The unease and sense of displacement brought by AI today are therefore not entirely new; they echo, and in some ways deepen, the impact once brought by computational tools and finite element software. AI goes beyond numerical solution. It enters literature retrieval, writing, coding, diagram generation, scheme construction, and even the appearance of problem formulation.