Are Robot Scientists the Future of Laboratory Research?
There was a time when science produced robots, but a paper published recently in the Automated Experimentation Journal suggests that in the future robots will autonomously produce science. It's not just a matter of cheap labor or taking menial tasks off the hands of researchers; the authors argue that science needs to be uniform and formalized, and AI robot scientists could help us get to that point by developing their own hypotheses and carrying out experiments with minimal human input. As their models, the authors cite a pair of robo-researcher prototypes, Adam and Eve. While Eve is still under development, she's designed to demonstrate the automation of closed-loop learning, feeding the conclusion of each experiment back into her experimental models. Adam, in service since 2005, has already conducted yeast metabolism studies leading to a variety of conclusions, some of which have been verified in manual biological experiments. Related Articles Robotic Office Stand-InMeet...