The Matrix was totally unrealistic...wasn't it?

[J Larsen]

Sorry I can't link the article - this is from a pay site. BTW, Nature, the journal in which this work was originally publised, is one of the three most rigorous scientific journals around in terms of peer review, so this is worth taking seriously.

Smart Robot Automates Science

Technology Research News January 27, 2004

What better entity to assign repetitive scientific tasks, like working out the function of specific genes, than a robot?

Researchers from the University of Wales, Robert Gordon University in Scotland, and the University of Manchester in England have put together a robot scientist that can devise a theory, fashion experiments to test the theory, carry out the experiments, and interpret results.

The researchers put the system through its paces testing yeast to determine gene function, and also had a control group of computer scientists and biologists perform the same scientific task. The robot performed as well as the best humans, and was three times cheaper than simply choosing the cheapest experiment and 100 times cheaper than random selection, according to the researchers.

The approach could make scientific research less expensive, and could be applied within a few years in areas where the level of laboratory automation is already high, like drug design, according to the researchers. Today's state-of-the-art drug design uses brute force automation.

The robot scientist consists of a fluid-handling robot, a plate reader that visually examines yeast, and artificial intelligence software that generates a set of hypotheses from information about biochemistry and plans experiments designed to eliminate potential hypotheses as quickly and cheaply as possible. It conducts experiments by dispensing and mixing liquids and measuring yeast growth.

The system could be ready for practical use in three to six years, according to the researchers. The work appeared in the January 15, 2004 issue of Nature.