The researcher’s AI odyssey: You need to start thinking bigger

Fanie van Rooyen
22 hours ago
5 min read

Illustration of a researcher at a computer as an ancient Greek ship and scrolls emerge from the screen, titled "The researcher’s AI odyssey.

Let’s be honest for a second. How are you currently using AI in your research workflow? If you’re like most of us, you’re probably using it to tidy up a clunky paragraph, brainstorm a few keywords, or perhaps politely asking it to “please explain this dense quantum physics paper to me like I’m five.” And that’s fine! AI is a fantastic editor and a tireless research assistant. But if that’s all you’re using it for, you are driving a Ferrari in first gear. With recent upgrades like Gemini 3 and ChatGPT 5.2, we are entering the era of seamless multimodality and on-the-fly coding. That sounds terrifyingly technical, I know. But stick with me. It actually means that you – yes, you, the one who breaks out in a cold sweat when you see a line of Python – can now build interactive software, simulations, and visual tools to communicate your science. Don’t believe me? Let me take you on an Odyssey.

The “Odyssey” experiment

To prove a point, I sat down with a modern AI model (Gemini 3 Pro, in this case) and gave it a task that would usually require a professional web developer and a few thousand dollars (and days).

The Goal: Create an interactive map of the Odyssey – Homer’s epic poem – tracing Odysseus’s 10-year journey from Troy to Ithaca. Why the Odyssey? Because it’s a fun interactive map experiment, and because, thanks to director Christopher Nolan’s latest gazillion-dollar project, we’ll all soon be talking about the Odyssey anyway.

The catch? I didn’t write a single line of code. I just asked for it.

Here is the exact workflow:

The model: Make sure you use the best model available, to ensure the best results
(”Thinking” instead of “Fast” models, “Pro” instead of “Thinking” models if you have a paid subscription). Be sure to have the “Canvas” tool selected so you can see a preview of what is created (and not just the code itself).
The prompt: I asked the AI to act as a "Digital Humanities developer" and create a single HTML file using Leaflet.js (an open-source map library), to plot Odysseus’s journey.
The data: I pasted a list of coordinates for Troy, the Cyclops’ island, the Underworld, etc. (which was easy to find online)
The vibe: I told it to make the map look like an "ancient parchment" with a sepia filter, using dark red ink for the route and gold coins for markers.

The Result:

In about 60 seconds, the AI spat out a complete, working HTML file. I opened it, and suddenly I wasn't reading about the Odyssey; I was navigating it. The map was interactive, the markers glowed when highlighted and a popup appeared with information when I clicked on each location.

Then, it was just a matter of iterating. Next, I asked for a timeline slider at the bottom so users could "sail" through the journey step-by-step, and for the markers to be icons depicting each event. Voila! The coin markers now each had a little logo, and the timeline slider showed me exactly how many years Odysseus wasted with Calypso (spoiler: it was a lot).

The point is, I just told it what I wanted and it did it, within a few seconds. I became a software engineer for an afternoon, simply by knowing what I wanted to see.

Why this matters for YOU (the "So what?")

You might be thinking, “That’s cool, but I’m a chemist/ecologist/sociologist, not a Greek mythologist.”

Here is the secret: The code is just a wrapper for your data.

If you can describe your data and how you want people to interact with it, AI can build the vessel. This allows you to move beyond the "PDF graveyard" where good research goes to die, and start creating living, breathing artefacts of your work.

Here are a few ways you can steal this workflow for your own field:

1. The ecologist’s migration map

Stop showing static maps of bird migration routes in your PowerPoint. Ask AI to build an interactive map where users can drag a slider to see where the flock moves month-by-month.

2. The historian’s time-machine

Writing about the French Revolution? Don’t just list dates. Generate an interactive timeline that users can scroll through, with pop-up boxes showing primary source documents at every major event. If you have some time on your hands, you can even link each event to an image or short video depicting what happened.

3. The chemist’s molecule viewer

Instead of a flat 2D image of a complex protein structure, ask the AI to generate a web page using Three.js that lets users spin, zoom, and explode the molecule in 3D space directly in their browser. This is a much more engaging way of letting your audience (and funders) ‘work with’ your data. If you haven’t had a look at what Google has been able to do with AlphaFold (AI protein folding), you should go do that. But of course, if you’re a chemist, it will be old news to you.

4. The social scientist’s dashboard

Have a massive survey dataset? Ask the AI to build a "Dashboard" with interactive charts. Let the public filter your results by age, gender, location, or income level themselves, rather than just reading your summary. It will instantly make your results more relatable.

How to become an AI "Architect"

The shift here is mental, not technical. You stop being the writer and start being the architect.

To get started, you don't need to learn C++ or JavaScript – like, at all. You just need to learn how to articulate your vision.

Be specific: Don't say "make a map". Say "make a Leaflet.js map with these 5 coordinates, using a blue dashed line, with Helvetica font for the title and an Old World Atlas feel."

Iterate: The first version will look ugly. That’s okay. Tell the AI, "Make the buttons bigger," or "Change the font to Papyrus," or "Fix that bug where the map zooms out too far."

Ask for a "single file HTML": This is the magic phrase. It tells the AI to bundle everything (CSS, JavaScript, HTML) into one file that you can easily share or embed (just like a PDF). You can copy the full HTML code and save it as an “.html” file if needed (you can use Notepad for that), or you can just copy the code directly into a web editor for embedding.

Here is an example on how to handle the embedding using a widget on a Wix website (it will be very similar for other web editors):

Open your Wix Editor and go to the page (or blog post) where you want to display your app/map/data/whatever wonderful thing you created.
Click the (+) Add Elements button on the left sidebar.
Select Embed Code > Embed HTML.
A gray box will appear on your page. Click Enter Code.
Paste the entire code block into the text box.
Click Update.
Important: Drag the handles of the HTML box to make it larger until the scrollbars disappear (Aim for about 700px height).
Note: Wix "sandboxes" this code. It functions within that specific box but cannot interact with the rest of your site.