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Automation is Democratizing Experimental Science (axios.com)
New advances are taking automation to the highest end of human endeavors, offering scientists a shot at some of the most intractable problems that have confounded them -- and along the way tipping a global balance to give upstarts like China a more level playing field in the lab. From a report: A combination of artificial intelligence and nimble robots are allowing scientists to do more, and be faster, than they ever could with mere human hands and brains. "We're in the middle of a paradigm shift, a time when the choice of experiments and the execution of experiments are not really things that people do," says Bob Murphy, the head of the computational biology department at Carnegie Mellon University.
Automated science is "moving the role of the scientist higher and higher up the food chain," says Murphy. Researchers are focusing their efforts on big-picture problem-solving rather than the nitty-gritty of running experiments. He says it will also allow scientists to take on more problems at once -- and solve big, lingering ones that are too complex to tackle right now. Starting next year, Murphy's department will offer students a master's degree in automated science, the university announced last week.
Automated science is "moving the role of the scientist higher and higher up the food chain," says Murphy. Researchers are focusing their efforts on big-picture problem-solving rather than the nitty-gritty of running experiments. He says it will also allow scientists to take on more problems at once -- and solve big, lingering ones that are too complex to tackle right now. Starting next year, Murphy's department will offer students a master's degree in automated science, the university announced last week.
You guys are hilarious. China was doing science while Americans were still playing with bows and arrows.
Democracy gives an equal voice to unequal people.
That's not what this is doing. Rather, people are capitalizing on automation. This Capitalism, not democracy.
Is that where we get to vote what the results should be?
What will grad students do if experiments are automated?
Even the best human descriptions of processes to generate the desired outcome can leave out minute details (like holding the vial at an incline of 45 degrees!). However, if you have an automated lab setup then you can simply share the instructions that were given to the machine that generated the desired result. Great for chemists, less so for psychologists. :P
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
It's soldiers ...
It's generals ...
How's the war on grammar going?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
It works for those scientist who straddle the divide between the time they had to learn to do it themselves and gained knowledge and experience doing so, and the the time they will have only "big picture" thoughts. For those who only learn in a big picture environment I doubt they will be able to have the big picture thoughts. More like big fantasies. And they will only be able to do what can be done by the equipment. How do they develop new lab techniques when they only buy lab equipment that does certain things? "Why CAN'T the equipment do this?"
E Proelio Veritas.
... when you can't counter and actual argument.
English is your first language after, "Da Da giggy boo."
It's lame to dig up an excuse like that.
I am multilingual, being proficient in the following languages:
English, Pasquale, COBOL, FORTRAN, breeze shooting, African-American vernacular English, mathematics, love, physics, Cajun, and pig Latin.
Back on topic: Science is being democratized, using the same definition of that word that applies to the democratization of literature (advances in printing press technology), Photography has been democratized in that even the unwashed have cameras.
Publishing used to be limited to those who had money and something valuable to say.
As you and I have demonstrated, any asshole can do that now.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Like, why would you do that?
Money.
You're avoiding one of the definitions of democratization wherein those things that were limited to the elite are now available to the unwashed.
The printing press equalized (democratized) the disparity between the literate and illiterate.
Efforts to stop that paradigm shift failed because the press makes a shitload of money.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
No.
It's both.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.