Denario
I’ve been alerted (by one of the authors) to a paper in the computer science/artificial intelligence section on arXiv, called The Denario project: Deep knowledge AI agents for scientific discovery by Francisco Villaescusa-Navarro et al. The abstract follows:
We present Denario, an AI multi-agent system designed to serve as a scientific research assistant. Denario can perform many different tasks, such as generating ideas, checking the literature, developing research plans, writing and executing code, making plots, and drafting and reviewing a scientific paper. The system has a modular architecture, allowing it to handle specific tasks, such as generating an idea, or carrying out end-to-end scientific analysis using Cmbagent as a deep-research backend. In this work, we describe in detail Denario and its modules, and illustrate its capabilities by presenting multiple AI-generated papers generated by it in many different scientific disciplines such as astrophysics, biology, biophysics, biomedical informatics, chemistry, material science, mathematical physics, medicine, neuroscience and planetary science. Denario also excels at combining ideas from different disciplines, and we illustrate this by showing a paper that applies methods from quantum physics and machine learning to astrophysical data. We report the evaluations performed on these papers by domain experts, who provided both numerical scores and review-like feedback. We then highlight the strengths, weaknesses, and limitations of the current system. Finally, we discuss the ethical implications of AI-driven research and reflect on how such technology relates to the philosophy of science. We publicly release the code at this https URL. A Denario demo can also be run directly on the web at this https URL, and the full app will be deployed on the cloud.
arXiv:2510.26887
Here’s a random picture from the paper:
I haven’t had time to read the paper yet – it’s 270 pages long – but I’m sure it will provoke strong reactions both in favour and against the idea of an AI research assistant. Comments are welcome through the box below.
P.S. The name Denario appears to be derived from the Latin “denarius”, a coin roughly equivalent to a day’s pay for a skilled worker in the days of the Roman Empire. More amusingly, “denarius” is the origin of the Polari word “dinarly”, meaning “money”. If I get time I must generate a Polari version of this manuscript.
In the Dark 
November 4, 2025 at 8:19 am
I doubt I’ll read its 270 pages, but I came across this last night which I do plan to read: https://zenodo.org/records/17065099. It is a position piece against the adoption of AI at Universities, though more on the teaching side, I think.
Whatever the potential benefits of large language models, I just enjoy reading for the sense of the person, their ideas and their way of conveying thought. If something from a student is badly written, there is the possiblity of discussing that with them, helping them to express the ideas they have. With AI-assissted writing, that development never occurs. It feels very bleak to me. My university, like pretty much all others, is embracing AI, and encouraging staff and students alike to make what they consider to be appropriate use of it
November 4, 2025 at 3:47 pm
Does the picture indicate that the AI will also write a referee report on its own paper? Says it all