artificial intelligence tends to focus on its potential dangers: algorithmic bias and discrimination, the mass destruction of jobs and even, some say, the extinction of humanity. As some observers fret about these dystopian scenarios, however, others are focusing on the potential rewards.could, they claim, help humanity solve some of its biggest and thorniest problems.
In the 17th century microscopes and telescopes opened up new vistas of discovery and encouraged researchers to favour their own observations over the received wisdom of antiquity, while the introduction of scientific journals gave them new ways to share and publicise their findings. The result was rapid progress in astronomy, physics and other fields, and new inventions from the pendulum clock to the steam engine—the prime mover of the Industrial Revolution.
Then, starting in the late 19th century, the establishment of research laboratories, which brought together ideas, people and materials on an industrial scale, gave rise to further innovations such as artificial fertiliser, pharmaceuticals and the transistor, the building block of the computer. From the mid-20th century, computers in turn enabled new forms of science based on simulation and modelling, from the design of weapons and aircraft to more accurate weather forecasting.
The second area is “robot scientists”, also known as “self-driving labs”. These are robotic systems that useto form new hypotheses, based on analysis of existing data and literature, and then test those hypotheses by performing hundreds or thousands of experiments, in fields including systems biology and materials science. Unlike human scientists, robots are less attached to previous results, less driven by bias—and, crucially, easy to replicate.
systems to exchange and interpret laboratory results and other data. They could also fund more research into the integration ofbeyond those being pursued in the private sector, which has bet nearly all its chips on language-based systems like Chat, such as model-based machine learning, may be better suited to scientific tasks such as forming hypotheses.