Medical AI is moving beyond recognition towards clinical dialogue and longitudinal prediction. Yet a central question remains: how would a patient's state change under intervention? Statistical models learn future observations, whereas mechanistic models describe selected processes. Neither provides a common framework for representing patient state, coupling scales or revising failed assumptions. We propose Life Operators: task-bounded mappings that define three scientific roles. Perception operators infer task-relevant biological states from multimodal observations, Evolution operators propagate these states under natural or intervention-conditioned dynamics, and Generation operators map them to measurable signals. Each role may be realised by equations, statistical models, neural networks or hybrids. Bridge operators connect components with different variables, scales and time steps. Selected operators and bridges form task-specific Operator Graphs containing the smallest set of states and mechanisms sufficient for a declared claim. This modular structure also makes scientific revision localisable. An AI co-scientist may propose changes to states, operators, bridges or graph structure, while independent evidence determines which variants are retained, restricted or retired. Over time, validated components could accumulate into broader multiscale models of the human body and provide a computational foundation for medical artificial superintelligence.
Bo Ni, Franck Dernoncourt, Hongjie Chen +5cs.AI cs.CL
AI co-scientists that generate hypotheses, retrieve related work, design experiments, execute code, and draft full papers are beginning to change how research is carried out. Despite this rapid progress, state-of-the-art systems remain researcher-agnostic: given a research goal, they optimize novelty, validity, or reviewer score while ignoring the individual scientist who will use the output. This overlooks a fundamental fact about research, namely, that what counts as novel, valuable, or feasible depends on the researcher, including their prior work, methodological repertoire, and the collaborators and communities in which they are embedded. In this work, we introduce the problem of personalized auto-research, which conditions every stage of the research process on a representation of the individual researcher. We argue that personalization is not a convenience layer, but rather the fundamental property that allows an AI system to serve as a genuine co-scientist rather than a generic instrument. To address this problem, we propose a general and flexible framework that threads a graph-grounded researcher context through retrieval, hypothesis search, experimentation, writing, and review. The framework consists of three fundamental components: (i) graph-grounded researcher representations, (ii) personalization across the full research pipeline, and (iii) evaluation grounded in the individual. Notably, we highlight a one-size-fits-all failure mode where distinct researchers issuing the same goal receive essentially the same research, erasing the tacit knowledge through which novel ideas arise. Finally, we discuss fundamental open problems and challenges.