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Science Technology

Scientists Invent Scientist 290

Posted by michael from the working-yourself-out-of-a-job dept.
An anonymous reader writes "From the Boston Globe: 'Researchers said yesterday that they have created the world's first robotic scientist, a system that can form theories, devise experiments, and then carry out the experiments almost entirely without human help.' Now, if it could file patents and lawsuits, it would be ready to enter today's world of technology."
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Scientists Invent Scientist More

Scientists Invent Scientist

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  • It's first invention (Score:5, Funny)

    by Trigun ( 685027 ) <evil AT evilempire DOT ath DOT cx> on Thursday January 15, 2004 @09:20AM (#7984949)
    will be to make something to do its work for it, just like the scientists did.
    • My question is: If it invents something otherwise patentable, who files the patent -- and would such a patent be enforcable?
    • but can it write grant proposals?

      The *true* test of a modern robot-scientist is getting money ...

      Of course, some might say that even the proverbial room of monkeys with typewriters throwing feces could produce something incomprehensible enough to seem like genius to grant committees... Considering some of the things that have gotten money in the past, the level of writing competence for the robot to get money for it's experiments might be really low. ;-)

    • It'll be a reverse Turing test for humans. 99% of which will fail.

  • Related BBC Link (Score:5, Informative)

    by vbprisoner ( 676611 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @09:22AM (#7984964) Homepage
    Robot Scientist Proves it's worth [bbc.co.uk]
    • You realise that this means they could patent the scientific process, when it is carried out by a machine.

      And then it is just a short step using this to stop scientific research unless they get a cut, because it would be unauthorized use of their patented processes and methods. Even if implemented in a biological system like a brain

      • If they have the common good in their interests, they really should patent this process, then place the patent in the commons. (I'm not sure how this process works with patents, but I'm confident it can be done somehow.) To do so would be to protect future generations from patent mischief with this application.
      • I sort of meant this tongue in cheek. Of course, it would be absurd to patent the Scientific method. On the other hand, we have seen other similar absurd patents, so why not this one? I can't wait for the idiots to put it through. You know some lawyer would chomp at the bit to do this. Imagine all of the money he could make suing for infringement.

        Imagine becoming the SCO of modern science.

        nah ..... could never happen

    • There is nothing scientific about what this device does. It does not create new Hypotheses but merely uses "existing well known" methods to explain things. That would place it in the realm of automation, not science.

  • bad idea? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lehk228 ( 705449 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @09:22AM (#7984968) Journal
    What happens when it decides that it's human masters are no longer needed and should be experimented on?

  • Hype... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Swanktastic ( 109747 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @09:22AM (#7984969)
    From the article:
    The system, say its British creators, did just as well as biology graduate students in solving a problem in genetics, according to an article in today's issue of the journal Nature.

    In other news, a calculator does just as well as a PhD mathematician at solving arithmetic problems.

    Come on, it's a neat invention, but it's solving a closed problem-- not worthy of being called a scientist.

    • Re:Hype... (Score:4, Funny)

      by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Thursday January 15, 2004 @09:25AM (#7985003)
      Yeah, how well is it doing at getting the part time job to pay off its graduate education like the real students are doing?

    • Re:Hype... (Score:5, Funny)

      by TopShelf ( 92521 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @09:31AM (#7985072) Homepage Journal
      I think what they did was try and create an artificial person, but when they found the social skills element too challening, they just slapped a lab coat on it and called a "scientist"...
    • "In a number of areas scientific data is being generated at enormous rates, creating the need for the automated analysis of the data," said Ross D. King, the system's co-inventor and a professor at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

      But is is self-learning? Meaning, would it go against the scientific method if scientific method itself turns out to be wrong and thus we have to reinvent scientific method? I doubt it could mimic a Schroedinger or Heisenberg.

      This is a lab rat. Big number cruncher with
  • Actually, maybe they already exist. Which could explain SCO: obviously a software bug. That's what you get when you illegally relicense GPL code ;-)

    [Notice for lawyers: if you can't recognise sarcasm, satire and irony, get an upgrade. Or switch to Linux ;-)]

  • What they have discovered is that enough 3GHz CPUs (Score:4, Funny)

    by jcrb ( 187104 ) <jcrb@yaho o . com> on Thursday January 15, 2004 @09:24AM (#7984984) Homepage

    are a close approximation of an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters, not only will you eventualy get Shakespere but some cool research papers as well :-)

  • The paper. (Score:3, Informative)

    by jabberjaw ( 683624 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @09:24AM (#7984990)
    Here [nature.com] is the paper coverring this topic. It appears in this weeks Nature.

  • Scientists invent Self-Publicising Scientist (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sanity ( 1431 ) * on Thursday January 15, 2004 @09:24AM (#7984994) Homepage Journal
    Researchers yesterday announced the creation of the world's first self-publicising scientist. "It was able to come up with a wild claim, find a gullible journalist, and persuade him to write an article proclaiming how wonderful it was all by itself!", Dr Friis of the University of Abtzppkkkf in Wales. "Then, when real scientists protested that such shameless self-publicity was damaging to the field as a whole, it automatically stuck its fingers in its ears and sang 'la la la' until those scientists went away".

    When asked whether he was, in fact, the robot the scientists had invented he replied "la la la" and hung up the phone.

    • Wonder how long it will be till it tells the other scientists to "Kiss my shiny metal ass."
    • Abtzppkkkf said that the technology could also be applied to other research-oriented fields, such as art and engineering. He said he had already been approached by several U.S. military contractors interested in the auto-publicization technology, and was already in technology licensing talks with a Utah-based software company called "the SCO group".
    • Abtzppkkkf is a rotten attempt at a fake welsh place name. You should have tried Abbwpwllgelli, or Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantisilio gogogoch, or Bedwelty.

      On second thoughts, no one will believe the middle one. Best to stick with Tonypandy.

  • Missing one thing... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Cyclopedian ( 163375 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @09:25AM (#7985011) Journal
    Is this "Scientist" prepared for the unexpected?

    Chance favors the prepared mind. -- Louis Pasteur

    If not, it won't do well, besides the lack of ability to think creatively.

    -Cyc

    • Is this "Scientist" prepared for the unexpected?

      If not, it won't do well, besides the lack of ability to think creatively.

      Sounds like a couple of professors I had in college.

      Although I was considered the harbinger of the unexpected.. nothing like embedding a 1 inch steel ball bearing into the concrete wall in the electronics lab with a maglev project I was working on... Never EVER decide to respond, "dunno, let's find out" to a question by a fellow classmate when they ask what would happen if you exc

  • Functional Genomics (Score:3, Informative)

    by zubernerd ( 518077 ) * on Thursday January 15, 2004 @09:28AM (#7985035)
    To quote the article:
    The Robot Scientist works in an area of biology known as functional genomics, which is concerned with uncovering the roles that different genes play in the machinery of life. As a test, the system was told to discover how certain genes affect a complex chemical pathway inside yeast cells. The task for the computer, and a common one in biology, was to figure out which genes are involved in which steps of the pathway by testing yeast cells with different genes removed.
    Sounds like it used a similar experimental setup that Ideker et al used to dissect the galactose metabolic pathways in yeast.
    Integrated genomic and proteomic analyses of a systemically perturbed metabolic network
    (URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11340206&dopt=Abstrac t)

  • Much needed. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by YanceyAI ( 192279 ) * <IAMYANCEY@yahoo.com> on Thursday January 15, 2004 @09:28AM (#7985042)
    In a number of areas scientific data is being generated at enormous rates, creating the need for the automated analysis of the data," said Ross D. King, the system's co-inventor and a professor at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth

    It's true that we have gone from doubling our knowledge of the world in three years to just eighteen months. NASA has data that is deteriating before it can be analized, so I think the following conderns are unfounded:

    Some scientists questioned whether the system, dubbed the "Robot Scientist" by its creators, deserved the title of scientist. For human scientists, some of the most interesting discoveries happen when researchers notice something they weren't looking for and suddenly change course...

    I think there is plenty of accumulated data that just needs basic analysis.

    It's really interesting to think about this system and IBM's new Webcrawler in terms of AI though, and what we might accomplish in the next ten years.

    • It's true that we have gone from doubling our knowledge of the world in three years to just eighteen months.

      Its a bit suspicious that everything seems to be doubling every 18 months.

      Methinks the 18 month figure is a bit exaggerated. Most of the mathematical theorems and scientific theories I know are a wee bit older than that.
  • Or else there can't be any "peer review" of its publications.
    • Slightly OT but given the recent controversy surrounding Yung Park (a materials scientist at Cambridge), it seems as if plagerism is becoming a bit more public. One good thing about this bot is that it most likely won't falsify results merely to be published in a high impact journal like Science or Nature, or to receive a Nobel/Field's Medal.

  • Too bad Escher is dead! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ThePretender ( 180143 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @09:30AM (#7985066) Homepage
    ...and the robotic scientist creates a better robotic scientist and so on and so forth...

    This has "Escher drawing" written all over it.

  • Sex (Score:4, Funny)

    by InodoroPereyra ( 514794 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @09:31AM (#7985071)
    More importantly, it is incapable of having sex, it must be a scientist ;-)

    (Yeah, I am a scientist myself ...)

  • So what? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by chaoticset ( 574254 )
    From the article:
    The system, say its British creators, did just as well as biology graduate students in solving a problem in genetics...

    Just as every college student has suspected at one time or another -- a machine could be doing their homework for them, and they could be doing something interesting instead.

  • nice sales job, but nothing new (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ajagci ( 737734 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @09:31AM (#7985077)
    People in AI have worked on automated scientific discovery for decades, and some of their systems have also had robotic components. This seems like a tweak and a good sales job, not a breakthrough.
    • The article even quotes Pat Langley as saying this is nothing new. He mentions some system from the early 1990s as the true pioneer here, but he's just being modest. Langley, Simon, and colleagues published in Science back in the early 1980s on their scientific discovery programs.

      This is an incremental advance perhaps, but not worthy of this kind of attention. Just goes to show that Nature and the like are as much about PR as they are about the genuinely new.

  • Did they solve the halting problem too? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bluGill ( 862 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @09:32AM (#7985087)

    In the late 1800s mathamatitions had this idea that you could write a bunch of rules that would allow undergraduates to devise proofs. This had a lot of interest until Godel (and others) proved that it can't be done.

    In traditional /. fashion I didn't read the artical. Still it seems to me that either this is very limited in what it can research, or it can't work. If it is limited, there isn't much news about a robot programed to do something either too repeatative for a human to finish, or too dangerious for a human to do. If it can't work, well I still welcome the limited expiriments it can do which can enhance knowledge, if we don't treat it like the end of all science when this machine does all it can do.

    • In traditional /. fashion I didn't read the artical.

      In traditional /. fashion, you can't spell either.

    • Re:Did they solve the halting problem too? (Score:4, Informative)

      by HeghmoH ( 13204 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @10:02AM (#7985359) Homepage Journal
      It hasn't been proven that a rules-based system can't come up with new proofs. It's simply that such a system cannot be complete. There's plenty of reason to believe that people can, in the end, be simulated with Turing machines. Unless you believe that humans have some unknown extra something, then any theoretical limitations to such a machine would also apply to its human creators.

    • Re:Did they solve the halting problem too? (Score:5, Informative)

      by adrianbaugh ( 696007 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @10:06AM (#7985391) Homepage Journal
      Godel never showed that you can't come up with proofs any more. (Obviously - people still are proving things, even quite difficult ones like Fermat's Last Theorem.)
      His Incompleteness Theorem was more subtle than that: (IIRC) it said that you can't guarantee to either prove or disprove an arbitrary theorem. It might be possible to prove it or disprove it, but in the general case you can't guarantee it.

      Think of it in terms of sets: you can quite easily decide that a Dodge Viper should go into the set containing all cars, and that an Athlon XP 2400+ should not. However you can't make a (correct) statement either way about whether the set containing all sets that do not contain themselves should contain itself or not.

      Proofs are perfectly possible in certain cases, but thanks to self-referentiality you can't prove everything. You may not even be able to decide whether some statements are provable or not.

      I'll mention a book that's been on my must-read list for a while now but I still haven't got round to: Douglas Hofstader's "Godel, Escher, Bach": apparently it's very good at helping to understand such things.

      This sentence no verb.

    • In the late 1800s mathamatitions had this idea that you could write a bunch of rules that would allow undergraduates to devise proofs. This had a lot of interest until Godel (and others) proved that it can't be done.

      I've noticed that nine times out of ten when people invoke Goedel it's irrelevant. Science is rarely about stringent mathematical logic, it's about finding patterns, analyzing data and forming new hypotheses then testing them. Once the computer system finds a new hypotheses based on models of

    • In the late 1800s mathamatitions had this idea that you could write a bunch of rules that would allow undergraduates to devise proofs. This had a lot of interest until Godel (and others) proved that it can't be done.

      No, he proved that it can't always be done. Human theorem-provers don't come with guarantees either.

      In traditional /. fashion I didn't read the artical. Still it seems to me that either this is very limited in what it can research

      Correct, that is the conclusion that you would have come to
  • I'm personally working on a robot alchemist ... gold baby!!!!
  • Is it certified 3 Laws Safe? If so, no worries.

  • A couple of points (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SimianOverlord ( 727643 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @09:37AM (#7985143) Homepage Journal
    The robot scientist will have its work checked over by real people anyway, prior to any publication. It is likely to ignore any interesting, but narrowly irrelevant data and so could miss important discoveries. It can only work in fields where any underlying biological phenomenon is simple eg biochemical metabolic pathways. Many experiments contradict each other, where the underlying biology is extremely complex, with a host of competing factors and extremely sensitive to slight changes in experimental reagents. I'm a scientist, and I'm not too worried. Modern maths uses number crunchers too, like with the 3 colour map problem, but the proofs are always checked over. I guess the difference is these maths problems would take so long in human hours as the dissuade anyone from starting. This isn't the case in most of biology so I reckon the robot will not be useful in most disciplines.

  • But can it (Score:2, Insightful)

    by punda ( 699366 )
    write proposals? That seems to be 95% of my advisor's job. No science can be done without the money to do it with.
    • If it can apply for grants, complain about its dissertation advisor, and begrudgingly TA a section of the freshman course -- only then is it an artificial scientist.

  • NewScientist (Score:2, Informative)

    by DRUNK_BEAR ( 645868 )
    This was discussed in NewScientist [newscientist.com] yesterday.
  • Now, if it could file patents and lawsuits, it would be ready to enter today's world of technology." That would be a lawyer. I invented a subvarient of the lawyer, the SCO lawyer, earlier today as part of my morning routine.

  • Where does it start? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by lawpoop ( 604919 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @09:40AM (#7985177) Homepage Journal
    This is what I've always wondered -- where does a totally objective, disinterested scientist start? Without motivation, this thing can't go anywhere on it's own.

    Science requires some kind of passion/imagination/interest to start. After that, you employ scientific method to create knowledge. But, I don't think we fully understand the first part.

  • Community response (Score:5, Funny)

    by mcc ( 14761 ) <amcclure@purdue.edu> on Thursday January 15, 2004 @09:41AM (#7985182) Homepage
    Other members of the mad science community criticized the University of Wales for wasting time on nonvital research, noting that they were wasting time developing a robot scientist that could have been spent on developing a sexy female robot assistant. Others noted that, despite years of attempts by the mad science community, Tokyo has STILL not been destroyed.

    The University of Wales group defended its research, noting that the work on the lessons learned in developing the robot scientist could likely be applied to developing a sexy female robot assistant. They also charged that bringing up the War On Tokyo was undue.

    "In general, I am sick of this attitude. I am tired of seeing comments on USENET like 'horrifying lizard-men hybrid created, Tokyo still not destroyed'. Clearly destroying Tokyo should be the first priority of the mad science community, but this does not mean all other research should cease or that research that does not attain this goal should be abandoned. This is unduly unwarranted in this case, however, as the robot scientist may well be the critical breakthrough we have needed in our long running quest to destroy Tokyo." said Ross D. King, the system's co-inventor and a professor at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, in a surprisingly candid press release today. The press release then went on to outline a possible scenario in which the robotic scientist could break free of its masters, escaping into exile with a vile hatred of all that lives to build an army of its own robots to challenge Mankind.
    • King forgets that 35% of the world's mad scientists *live* in Tokyo and they are working on an alternate physics that will render into atoms all structures above 2 stories in locations with too many consonants.
  • This is extremely impressive--we'd like to do something similar with robots at Sunderland.

  • Robot gets a Nobel prize? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @09:46AM (#7985219)
    When will this robot find some interesting theory and experimental proof that qualifies it for a Nobel prize? (Or would qualify it for the prize if a human had done the same work?)

    This invention demonstrates the full power of computers to mass-produce logical human thought processes. Although it may be very hard to reduce the mental processes behind creating theories and experiments to a set of algorithmic processes, once done the possibilities are endless. A robotic scientist can be mass produced for far less money and in far less time than it takes to grow a new Ph.D person.

    Software is, in my opinion, a more powerful invention than was writing. While writing encodes and distributes static thoughts, software encodes and distributes the dynamic thought processes.
  • I just know some scientist is going to see what it does when he pisses in the little jars and viles and tubes, just to confuse the robot and see what it does. I know I would.

  • Data analysis (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ktanmay ( 710168 )

    "In a number of areas scientific data is being generated at enormous rates, creating the need for the automated analysis of the data," said Ross D. King,

    So basically it collects hundreds of terabytes of data, then uses certain algorithms to analyze it in an effort to try to spot a trend.

    So far so good, but the part where it tries to interpret the data in a more innovative way by creating theories is for me the breakthrough. I can't help but think that credit (if a new theory is discovered) must go to th

  • Nice variety of words in the title (Score:5, Funny)

    by manduwok ( 610836 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @09:49AM (#7985247)
    Science: Scientists Invent Scientist

    I predict that the next story will be:
    Slashdot: Slashdotters Slashdot Slashdot
  • and is hence not worthy of being labeled a scientist.

    processing = following preprogrammed algorithm thinking = devising one's own algorithms to solve problems

    ofcourse "do computers think" is a holy war all by itself.

  • In related news, a team of legal technologists has invented a robot intellectual property lawyer. The device scans dozens of websites for technology terms, assembles dossiers on new terms, files patents for the technologies and sends threatening letters to companies mentioned on the websites. The next step, according to researchers, is to build in the capability to automatically file lawsuits. "The antiquated US courts are not yet capable of accepting robot filings. The Japanese are far ahead of us in t

  • Robot Scientist (Score:2, Insightful)

    by AviLazar ( 741826 )
    I don't know, maybe it won't invent the cure for cancer, maybe it won't be able to decode the sequence and meanings of life - but just like a calculator, it will automate known procedures. This will, at the very least, increase the efficiency of what human scientists can do. I agree, it is limited to what it has been programmed to do. The AI portion is probably not advanced enough to figure out extremly complex, unknown issues (and it probably doesn't get things like 'hunches.'). But considering that fi

  • What about Eurisko? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mangu ( 126918 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @10:07AM (#7985412)
    Do a google for "lenat" and "eurisko" and you'll find a system that did this thirty years ago. Designed by Doug Lenat, Eurisko was a software that created and tested new mathematical theorems. Didn't evolve much after that, because there's a lot more to science than just creating and proving theorems.

  • Yeah, but.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by bloggins02 ( 468782 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @10:12AM (#7985469)
    ...what would happen if he decided to become a Creationist? Wouldn't that be embarrassing! ;-)
  • The inventors claim its brain is bound by "the rules of science". There's only two rules to science:

    1> A statement is scientific only if it is falsifiable (ie. a test could be proposed which the statement could possibly fail).

    2> Scientific tests are repeatable with identical results.

    Of course, the Universe enforces rule . Rule is the fundamental axiom of faith in science's religion (it's not a scientific statement itself, as it's not falsifiable): "Logical Positivism". I have yet to hear how a det

  • MOO (Score:4, Funny)

    by jpatters ( 883 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @10:20AM (#7985555)
    Everyone knows that Android Scientist tech is totally useless, because it perminately takes up a population slot and can't be moved to another job. Now, if we could successfully research Autolabs, we could really leap ahead of the Klackons, and maybe even keep up with the Psilons!
  • Yes, but we're waiting for them to produce a quine [nyx.net]--a scientist program that, when compiled and run, decides to invent a scientist, which, when compiled and run, will decide to invent a scientist, which...on second thought, maybe that's not so useful. Mostly because the successive invented scientists won't be able to get published--reviewers will cite prior art. :)
  • You should be disqualified from writing or reporting on science if you cannot master the basics of the vocabulary. Scientists do not form theories. They form hypotheses. Then they experiment to test the hypotheses. Hypotheses which are not disproven by a body of observations may be promoted to theory.

    For Christ's sake, if Peter Hotton kept calling a 2x4 a sheet of plywood, they'd fire his ass.

  • I know the article said this robot had no mobility, but just imagine if it bred with this [slashdot.org] robot and escaped!
  • This could be wonderful news for the advancement of science in general. Most of it is trial and error. Mix these 2 together and see if has the desired effect. There may be 10 or 20 thousand combinations to try. That's what experimental science is all about. Now if a grad student could just setup one of these things to test all combinations until either the wanted result appears, interesting things not predicted happen, or favorable or disfavorable results happen that could be useful else where. I could see
  • Just like the "programmer creates programmer" thing. Code generators have been around for ages, but I have yet to see a program that can think up a program for itself (or even turn a requirements-document into actual working software).
  • It was bad enough when we just had humans scientists playing God.

    Imagine what happens when robot scientists play God?

    "The results of our experiment were unfortunate. Fortunately, we robots do not actually need there to be oxygen in the atmosphere in order to live, so the damaging effects were limited to a subset of more primitive beings."
  • And get them published?

  • I for one (Score:3, Funny)

    by lavalyn ( 649886 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @11:33AM (#7986400) Homepage Journal
    welcome our Turing-complete overlords.

    Or not, since in the end they will all fall over trying to determine whether the halting problem has been accounted for in their theory-making systems.
  • Intersting, but sort boring

    Create a machine that will lie and cheat or partake in other acts of self-preservation and I will be impressed.
  • I could have made a computerized scientist, no problem. All you have to do is con a university into giving it a teaching position, and then it can claim the work of it's grad students. Easy.
  • Science will be done by robots (like it already isn't) and a high school drop out makes $50k a year as a garbage collector, because the simple act of walking to a garbage can, dragging it to the truck and clipping it onto lifting hooks, pulling the "Empty" lever, then dragging the cans back to the sidewalk is TOO complicated for a friggin robot, and too physically demanding for a computer geek.

    So, Bubba the semiliterate high school football hero gets a job as a cop and will beat the crap out of Mr Scienc

  • I guess those Scientists just created their replacements? Why outsource to India when a robot can do the job much cheaper? The robot also would not sleep, take vacations, complain, or require benefits. :)

    Maybe we can finally get an unbiased opinion on the heated debate on Evolution verses Intelligent Design? :) Let the robot, which does not have a religion or opinions, do the work.

    Just watch the robot carefully so that it does not create an army of robots that look like Arnold Schwarzenegger and build Sky

  • Lab Work is Drudge Work (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kimbly ( 26131 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @12:54PM (#7987532) Homepage
    Lots of people are commenting that this isn't that useful because the robot won't come up with new scientific breakthroughs. But I suspect that none of these people have actually done biotech lab work.

    Lab work largely consists of doing the same thing over and over and over and over. My partner is doing a PhD in molecular biology, and I have spent more than a few nights and weekends helping her by being a robot. For example, one Sunday I spent about 10 hours gathering "growth curve" data. This involves taking dozens of vials of growing yeast, and measuring their optical density every 2 hours or so. To do this, you take the vials out of a spinning wheel, put them in a tube holder, carry the tubes to a desk, put new tips on a pipette, mix the tubes to stir them up again, suck out some of the fluid, and squirt the fluid into a smaller tube. Then you put the large tubes back, carry the little tubes to the optical density device, insert them, run the measurement, print out the results, pull out the little tubes, put them in a styrofoam holder for posterity, and repeat.

    This process was incredibly labor intensive -- I had about 10 minutes of rest time every 2 hours, over the course of 10 hours. And after those 10 hours my partner took over and continued the process for another 10 hours.

    Not only would a robot have been a welcome relief to this process, we actually spent quite a while discussing the specific requirements and possible design of such a robot.

    A robot like this is useful because it provides the equivalent of a compiler and automated test suite. The interesting things in biological science do not come from grad students running through the grunt work manually -- they come from grad students using their brains to design the experiment and then analyze the results.

    Obviously this robot won't replace the grad students entirely. But it might let them be vastly more productive.
  • as far as functional genetics goes, this seems reasonable. All they want it to do is add and subtract bits of DNA and see what comes out.

    This is evidently a common approach in biology. It would probably work for some types of chemistry as well, but this type of robot would not work well in physics. I would enjoy having a robot to solder all my leads for me, but most of what I do is non-repetitive and requires creative thinking constantly. (Besides, we have undergraduates for the repetitive tasks, they'

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