In neuroscience labs navigating the arrival of agentic AI, a fundamental question has surfaced: when a machine can prototype in hours what once took days, what does it mean to truly know something as a scientist? A lab principal investigator, moved by a beachside demonstration of AI's raw capability, returned home to find that technology had already begun reshaping his researchers' expectations and anxieties before any policy existed to guide it. The response — a collaboratively drafted framework for AI use — reflects a broader reckoning across research institutions about how to preserve the s