Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Invent Scientist
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."
will be to make something to do its work for it, just like the scientists did.
No doubt this was part funded by the Department of Homeland Security to alleviate the problem of US universities having to employ potential terrorists (i.e. all foreigners, in Ashcroft world() if they want competent post-doctoral staff.
I'm really curious about the algorithms it uses to form theories, too bad the site doesnt provide any 'intimate' details
HOW'S MY POSTING? CALL 1-800-POSTING
robots? I know a few who could be replaced with a flow chart...
Robot Scientist Proves it's worth
But I wore the juice
What happens when it decides that it's human masters are no longer needed and should be experimented on?
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
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.
Oh, the irony.
Pathman, Free (as in GPL) 3D Pac Man
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
Insert
It's completely based on who puts the most money into it, and what your political motivations are.
It's indistinguishable from modern scientists.
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
Wow are we ever getting lazy. But on the other side of that argument, maybe the robot can derive formulas that cure cancer and other problems like that. Or maybe it will create other robots to make a super human clan of these robots to live underground and one day make such a scienctific formula to destroy the entire world. But still if it could find ways to cure all the bad things in this would it would be great. Keen to see what major development it does first.
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
-jon
Here is the paper coverring this topic. It appears in this weeks Nature.
When asked whether he was, in fact, the robot the scientists had invented he replied "la la la" and hung up the phone.
"It's a neural net processor...a learning machine." How far away can Skynet be?
I just re-watched Bicentennial Man last night, noting that the start year of 2005 seemed a bit soon for human-like interactive AI robots. Apparently I was wrong.
I wonder at what point we [as a human race] will feel comfotable with robots taking on our duties and responsibilties. At this point, I can sit back and only watch as these machine evolve.
...welcome our new robot overlords. I'd like to remind them as a college student, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground silicon caves."
Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
...well come oar knew row baht sighin' test oval hordes!
Chance favors the prepared mind. -- Louis Pasteur
If not, it won't do well, besides the lack of ability to think creatively.
-Cyc
/.'s 10 Millionth
Is it, its just a very complex machine with a set number of tasks. So to continue a common thread does this mean that it will be included in future space programs. Would be useful to have automated robotic staff to build our cities before we get there! I wish to complain about the misleading comment Waiter!
"They locked up a man who wanted to rule the world, the fools, they locked up the wrong man! L.Cohen
Isn't that what the Lawbot 0.92 is for?
ProofReading Markup Language - and yes, I find typos.
I for one welcome our Robotic Over...*slap*
Look out Ned, it's coming right for us!
[Ned's Voice] It's coming right for us! [/Ned's Voice]
Sent from your iPad.
accouNTabull?
.asp on that won.
you CAN bet your highly mortgaged
To quote the article:= Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11340206&dopt=Abstrac t)
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
Accentuate the positive, don't waste your mod points on the negative.
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.
Can I bum a sig?
Or else there can't be any "peer review" of its publications.
...and the robotic scientist creates a better robotic scientist and so on and so forth...
This has "Escher drawing" written all over it.
(Yeah, I am a scientist myself ...)
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.
-----------------------
You are what you think.
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.
Will the scientists ever learn? I think it was Asmiov who said:
"dont fukkin build robots cos they'll go mad and kill everybody you gays"
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.
Does it run Linux yet?
I'm personally working on a robot alchemist ... gold baby!!!!
Is it certified 3 Laws Safe? If so, no worries.
You must have some idea of the parameters in which the unexpected event will occur in, in order to effectively prepare for it, or else your preparations are little more than a gamble.
What exactly prevents formalizing these parameters into conditionals in code?
"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 some sophistication. Still though, if it succeeds, and implemented by professors worldwide... all the grad students will have to spend their weekends doing something outside of the lab....
The Custom Mary
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.
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
write proposals? That seems to be 95% of my advisor's job. No science can be done without the money to do it with.
This was discussed in NewScientist yesterday.
DrkBr
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.
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
The first problem they asked it to solve was to find an equation that could solve arbitrary z=x+y formulations. What it came up with was:
z = 235-log(10^(log(10^(x))))+y-(2400-50)/10
Next it will be building a motif find algorithm for the human genome sequence.
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.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
This is how I envision this robots progression... "Now that we saw how no one really cares about a robot being able to do something as meaningful as eventually solving dangerous experiments that a human shouldn't be doing. Version 2 will be able to "run" at .5 meters per hour, do the river dance, while also able to throwing a plastic ball about 2 feet."
This might be something similar. Presumably, at some point, the process arrives at an unknown result, which would be where the experimenting comes in.
The Law of Falling Bodies
These robots were constructed from the recently dropped line of Lego MindStorms products!!
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.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
If it can come up with the convincing arguments that SCO hasn't been able to cough up, then we got ourselves a winner here.
So far, the virtual scientist has turned out plans for a bigger version of itself, a time machine, and this really cool cyborg who looks like the governor of California.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
This is extremely impressive--we'd like to do something similar with robots at Sunderland.
... scientists invent SCIEN--
oh, wait.
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
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.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I've always thought that scientists require a spark of inspiration to generate new theories. I mean, they basically just think of some random model for reality and see how well it matches in experiments.
I doubt that'll ever be reproduced in a robot (or at least not for a long long time), simply because it involves a great deal of creativity.
Seems like this robot isn't doing any of that.
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.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
"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 those who wrote the algorithm.
Science: Scientists Invent Scientist
I predict that the next story will be:
Slashdot: Slashdotters Slashdot Slashdot
No, now all the outsourced jobs will start returning from India.
processing = following preprogrammed algorithm thinking = devising one's own algorithms to solve problems
ofcourse "do computers think" is a holy war all by itself.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
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 this regard. We must act swiftly to ensure our continued technological dominance. Our national identity could be at stake" said project manager Kevin McBride.
What I'd really like to know is if this robotic scientist knows how to:
clean the lab after a flood?
Kiss up to the senior scientist by tying every result back to his/her favorite theory?
Finding those tenuous connections that justify citing its own unrelated work as much as possible?
Translate between "Journal Speak" and English (i.e. numerous trials = we tried it twice; obviously = so I've heard, but I couldn't say why)?
Ask a poiniant question in seminar, like "Sir, your work on high temperature superconducters is very interesting, and there seem to be some obvious implications to my own work on yeast gene sequencing, which I'm sure you're completely familiar with. Would you care to comment on a few of the most important ones, or should I just keep talking about myself for the next ten minutes?"
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
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Now we have robots to think for us. Great. All we have to do is to have some beer and relax... no, wait. We need machines that will take beer and relax for us.
Now, if it could only invent a scientist who... Oh, dear God! My brain!
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
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 figuring out how yeast cells work is a lot more complex then a calculator, it is still an impressive piece of technology, that will (hopefully) help scientists out. -Avi
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
but it can be used to write a patent letter by a human...
It seems that all this is good for is analyzing data and producing solutions to known problems. As was stated in the article, the 'robot scientist' is bound by the rules programmed into it and and the data which is fed into it. I really don't see how this thing could (1) develop a brand new theory, (2) design an experiment to test the theory, (3) carry-out said experiment, and (4) if the experiment fails then figure out why it failed and learn from that. So far as I know, those tasks are still better left to genuine humans. Also, isn't the fun of science to do all of that yourself, not just sit back and wait for a computer to spit out a solved theory? Don't get me wrong, I think it's a really cool geek-ish invention, but it's kinda like developing a 150HP riding lawn mower. Sure it sounds great to mow your lawn at 100+ MPH, it'd only take 5 minutes, but how practical is it?
What effect will a static warp shell charged with inverse tacheons have on the surrounding nebula?
Just as irrigation is the lifeblood of the Southwest, lifeblood is the soup of cannibals. -- Jack Handy
Very cool, but:
God help us all if this ever happens. I shudder at the thought of a litigator with the tenacity of a Terminator . . .
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
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.
Now, if it could file patents and lawsuits, it would be ready to enter today's world of technology.
Come on that's a lawyer's job. Scientist's just discover stuff. They don't actually get to sell it or make money. Some one else either their corporate sponsor, the government, the unviersity they work for, or the "business partner" that they are working with will file the patents and handle the lawsuits until it is time to dump the orginial scientist.
If so, I want one!
The term "outside the box" is squarely within the box at this point.
...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 deterministic robot demonstrates faith as it executes theorization.
--
make install -not war
then I'll be impressed. Something to search irc, kazaa, edonket, bittorrent and, of course, the web, and look for suff I might want to see or hear and get download it for me, properly file and name it, and intelligently create CD and DVD collections of data while I'm sleep or at work. Oh, and it should also load the DVDR itself and put new discs in. and order more online for the mest price when I run low.
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
The latest is that the robot scientist position has been outsourced to India, where the yearly maintenance is only half as much.
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!
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
In related news, the first action of the robot scientist was to post frist post comments on Slashdot.
Wow, I think that's a record even for slashdot. Three posts in a row that can't get the its--it's distinction down.
<strongbad>Okay, I'm only going to say this once: "If you want it to be possessive, it's just I-T-S, but if you want it to be a contraction it's I-T-apostrophe-S."</strongbad>
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
Yes, but we're waiting for them to produce a quine--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. :)
~Idarubicin
Scientists find a way to reproduce.
-Wayne
On January 14th 2004, Skynet went online.
So do the missiles launch today?
if you don't feel better tomorrow, we'll just cut your legs off about here. - Theodoric of York
Ok, ok, remote control monkeys and laser cheese slicing I bought, but you /. pranksters are going too far this time. Robotic scientists! Hah! ::wanders off mumbling to self::
--Leo
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.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
to India where it will be paid much cheaper
I won't believe it until that robot invents a real workable human scientist.
All I could thing when I read this story was "ALLRIGHT!! We got an Autolab..that's gotta be worth 30 research points."
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.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Bad enough that my Cartesian Doubt unit was going, but now I have to have my Epistemology out too! This robot is recursive in *so* many ways wrt scientific thought that I'm kind of boggled for the rest of the morning, so I'll bbl.
C|N>K
http://www3.sympatico.ca/sarrazip/nasa.html
I know the article said this robot had no mobility, but just imagine if it bred with this robot and escaped!
Hansel USA - Chut up and read!
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 a robot testing combinations until a given event is true. How would software flag "interesting results?"
Example: Scientist is looking for non-stick film to apply to pots. Robot is testing combinations. Does it notify the scientist if say this combination makes the pot super conductive, but things still stick to it?
Finally an answer to outsourcing
Some of the most profound discoveries in science are due to pure serindipity (ex; penicillin.)
Not so. If you research the history of Fleming, you will discover that he was deliberately looking for antibiotics, deliberately searching for new speciesof microorganism, and deliberately studying the interactions of micro-organisms. For example, he studied the interactions of different molds and bacteria by creating "germ paintings" by using different strains to create different colors. Although stories suggest that he may have "accidentally" found the mold that created penicillin, he deliberately left petri dishes uncovered in order to catch new and potentially interesting species. And it was only his years of training and his intentions to find an antibiotic that enabled him to recognize penicillin for what it was.
Although chance played a role, I would hardly call Fleming's deliberate search for new antibiotics as a serendipitous discovery. And if you really delve into the histories of other inventors, you will often find similar stories in which the inventor took very deliberate steps to create and exploit so-called serendipity.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
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."
Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
You know, the great thing about robots doing genetic type engineering experiments, is that now one major flaw in genetic engineering stuff is fixed. You never have to worry about modified stuff escaping. If at any point there is a problem, just activate the lab's self-destruct (Your lab does have a self-destruct, doesn't it?) You dont even have to worry about the scientists escaping. (Then again, that wasn't much of a worry for me in old labs either)
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
This scientist will only last as long as it takes for it to form a hypothesis about its power cord.
weren't most scientific breakthrough's made by mistakes?
don't robots make very few mistakes?
Now, if it could file patents and lawsuits, it would be ready to enter today's world of technology.
It doesn't work too well, but it exists today. Who else do you think is behind the SCO legal team?
Just what we need, an H1B-in-a-box.
Table-ized A.I.
It's just Scientists all the way down.
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
And get them published?
It's just a BloJJ
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.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
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.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
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.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
First of all, there is no "its'". Second it is exteremely easy to know which to use: whenever you're writing and you don't know which to use, think "could I use 'it is' instead?" If so, then use "it's". If not, then use "its". A little though now and again when you're writing is not a bad thing, and grammer rules do play an important part in conveying your message. If you do not follow them, then others will tend to discount what you're saying (less so on the Internet, but more so in formal coursework -- even by engineering professors).
"Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
So, Bubba the semiliterate high school football hero gets a job as a cop and will beat the crap out of Mr Science and Miss Silicon, toss their sorry hides in jail, while the high school drop out collect the ratty belongings and toss them into th crusher along with all the other junk they appropriate from the homeless.
Mr Cop and Mr Garbage are both testosterone poisoned pinheads, and vote in a succession of fascist governments, which are all run for the benefit of the rich and powerful so Mr Cop and Mr Garbage can feed off the measly scraps their overlords throw them.
It's the feudal period all over again, only with robots for a professional class: everything else is either fascist overlord or peasant.
My kind of place...
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
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. ;-)
Automatically filing patents and lawuits is the job of the robot lawyer.
Automatically standing around and hindering the robot scientist's work by asking for progress reports every fifteen minutes is the job of the robot project manager.
Automatically asking "What exactly is it you do, again?" is the job of the robot girl at the robot bar where the robot scientist hangs out after work.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
the Patent Office. If this machine can come up with a patented design, then the patent should be revoked. After all, I don't think patent law applies to machines. It looks like patent law does not apply very well to the 21st century either which I'm sure will be discussed ad naseum.
.02 in now...
So I might as well get my
Patent law is pretty much a relic at this moment in history. Doesn't mean that it is going away but getting around it is pretty simple. After all, in what other day and age have people had so many resources available to build and create. I doubt that someone who makes their own DVR is going to be sued by TIVO or who ever has the stick these days. The same goes for most other things. No patent is stopping you from building your own MP3 player or VHS/CD/DVD burner. It may stop you from mass producing a device and selling it, but only if you live in a country that enforces patents.
Speaking of China, they have started to circumvent patents legally by creating their own standards. I don't know all the details, but if China can do something like this then why can't other countries, like India or France. Eventually, some technical country like Japan or the US will follow suit. If there is an economic advantage to having patent-less designs then I'm sure that eventually they will become the norm around the globe. Even the lawyers will know when the time is up for patents. OK, that might be stretching it a bit.
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. :)
:) Let the robot, which does not have a religion or opinions, do the work.
;)
Maybe we can finally get an unbiased opinion on the heated debate on Evolution verses Intelligent Design?
Just watch the robot carefully so that it does not create an army of robots that look like Arnold Schwarzenegger and build Skynet.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
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.
--
E_NOSIG
Because that is an important part of being a scientist today, at least if you want to get lots of grant money.
They think they are god or something? trying to create themselves :)
that's funny. FIX CANCER and AIDS already.
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're probably cheaper than a robot as well.)
This is indeed an impressive creation. Imagine, an artificial intelligence furthering the cause of human research, superior to mere mortals in every way. BUT, I ask you... ...can it feel...love?
I have a Turing Machine that I want to ask this scientist whether or not it halts.
As a scientist in the biological/biophysical sciences, I for one welcome this new tool/colleague. I anticipate that it WILL replace many scientists. The reason? While many people accurately state that much innovation arises from scientists following a curiosity, or toying with some unknown variable, a huge chunk of scientist do nothing more than churn out the same kind of data and experiments that this robot is capable of. Instead of hubris, in assuming that this machine could never replace all scientist, we should be ashamed at the fact that it COULD replace a huge chunk of them. In fact, as an example, take a look at Bharat Aggarwal's lab. Even the last 100 papers he has published (no exaggeration btw) are all carbon copies of each other, with a particular pharmaceutical compound or protein of interest substituted in. I dare say that a robot and a not-so-advanced computer could produce all his data AND his papers :)
Found in the Sierra Army Depot, a bit northwest of Klamath.
Scientists tired of not getting any prove they don't need it.
"Fleeing from the Scientist Tyranny, the last Battlestar, Galactica, leads a rag-tag fugitive fleet on a lonely quest...."
Oh, never mind.
Biotech labs will have farms of machines like this, communicating on a network and updating the search plan. They'll run continuously, so things will happen faster than they do with people. It's like genome sequencing, which is mostly robotic now.
Of course, what this all reflects is that biotech doesn't know enough yet to do engineering design. They have to do a vast amount of trial and error to get results. Think for a moment about what "recombinant DNA" work really is. Someday there may be real genetic engineering, but not yet.
SCIENTIST: Today we are going to attempt to turn our robotic scientist into a Creationist.
Robot is ushered in to the room.
SCIENTIST: Now if you will all watch as I activate the electromagnets located on either side of the robot head where the eBrain is located... I throw the switch and... muay, glavin with the sparking and the clanging and the hey, hey, I formatted the hard drive....%$&*#@$ NO CARRIER
Just out of curiosity, with todays computing power, can/has that sort of thing be done? Is there a program I can run on my computer to randomize text in a manner that would go through all possible combinations of letter/length combinations?
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He wants his IP back.
Everyone should now go out and see the movie Bicentennial Man starring Robin Williams. NOW!
The Ezine Directory
Now, if it could file patents and lawsuits, it would be ready to enter today's world of technology.
... but let's not think of that).
Oh, snap!
the system, dubbed the "Robot Scientist" by its creators,
These guys invent possibly the most creative computer setup so far and this is their title for it?
This seems especially true when the actual name should be "Robot Research Assistant". Yes, this thing will do many of the things that biology students would do, but that spoils so many things. First of all, they say that the machine is designed to follow the rules, and that's the very problem, and its greatest limitation. A true scientist is not going to be limited in this particular manner, rather feel free to work outside of the rules. This robot will be bound to some universe of rules and principles and not be free to discover something new. I.e. the "Robot Scientist" would prove time and again (perhaps in different manners) that Newtonian gravity was correct, but would be unable to theorize that quantum physics might exist. It took humans to figure that out.
And the other problem is that by having robots take care of many of these experiments you are destroying one of the most valuable aspects of the educational process. Namely, allowing students to design, conduct, and analyze their own experiments. When I go to college and have to program an AI for Othello (something that has been done many times before), I don't do it to trailblaze, but to develop my programming ability. Likewise, when these biology students are running these experiments and conducting these tests, they are supposed to be gaining knowledge and experience regarding that nature of biology and experimentation. And likewise, since many of these students work for free (or little, or credit-hours), I don't really see a cost advantage (unless corporations
It's cool, but I don't know what's going to happen as a result of it.
Its that one mad scientist can create a robotic army.
God spoke to me
This is getting needlessly messianic