Slashdot Mirror


A Robot Scientist Will Dream Up New Materials To Advance Computing (technologyreview.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: In a laboratory that overlooks a busy shopping street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a robot is attempting to create new materials. A robot arm dips a pipette into a dish and transfers a tiny amount of bright liquid into one of many receptacles sitting in front of another machine. When all the samples are ready, the second machine tests their optical properties, and the results are fed to a computer that controls the arm. Software analyzes the results of these experiments, formulates a few hypotheses, and then starts the process over again. Humans are barely required.

The setup, developed by a startup called Kebotix, hints at how machine learning and robotic automation may be poised to revolutionize materials science in coming years. The company believes it may find new compounds that could, among other things, absorb pollution, combat drug-resistant fungal infections, and serve as more efficient optoelectronic components. The company's software learns from 3-D models of molecules with known properties. Kebotix uses several machine-learning methods to design novel chemical compounds. The company feeds molecular models of compounds with desirable properties into a type of neural network that learns a statistical representation of those properties. This algorithm can then come up with new examples that fit the same model.
To strain out potentially useless materials, Kebotix uses another neural network and "then the company's robotic system tests the remaining chemical structures," reports MIT Technology Review. "The results of those experiments can be fed back into the machine-learning pipeline, helping it get closer to the desired chemical properties. The company dubs the overall system a 'self-driving lab.'"

41 comments

  1. AI this and AI that... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why does everything keep getting dumber and dumber and more obnoxious and broken if this "AI" is so great and will fix everything? Absolute, utter insanity.

    1. Re:AI this and AI that... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      More buzzwords and AI stuff and fuck this shit

    2. Re: AI this and AI that... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yeah, the magic of A.I. makes it sound like we donâ(TM)t need scientists.

    3. Re: AI this and AI that... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's just 20 years away from being told it's just 20 years away

  2. rifle turtles and elephants by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As long as AI cannot distuigh a rifle from a turtle and gets all confused by an elephant that wasn't supposed to be there,
    AI is only usefull for burning through your VC money.

    1. Re: rifle turtles and elephants by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most VC money gets burned through anyway on sales trips

  3. No, it won't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But keep dreaming millennials. Try not to lose that when you reach the age that you realize Star Trek and The Matrix were something somebody made up.

    1. Re: No, it won't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh?

  4. Aha! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As I always suspected, science is tedious and boring, work fit only for machines. I'm so glad I steered clear of STEW (Science Technology Engineering and Whatever).

  5. NO AI ROBOTS IN FEDERAL PRISON THOUGH! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Trump traitors are safe, for now. Wait a minute or 4.

  6. Won't work, I've already tried this. by FilmedInNoir · · Score: 2

    All I can come up with is showing up to an exam late in my underwear.

    --
    Sig. Sig. Sputnik
  7. Lots of Kool-Aid here! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wouldn't drink it if I were you.

    Seriously, the only thing missing is blockchain.

  8. I thought computer operated systems like this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Were supposed to inviolate IP laws surrounding the produced goods.

    If an algorithm designs music without significant human creative input, or as in this case researches and produces results on a series of materials, the end result isn't supposed to be copyrightable or patentable since it wasn't a direct product of human innovation.

    The corporations just keep getting more powerful while the little guy gets further and further from the feed.

  9. Reminded me of this: by rmdingler · · Score: 1

    The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare. In fact, the monkey would almost surely type every possible finite text an infinite number of times.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

    1. Re:Reminded me of this: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If they have to try 1 trillion combinations and each combination takes a minute, how soon before they lose funding and fail to produce any meaningful results?

    2. Re:Reminded me of this: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The infinite monkey theorem

      It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times.

    3. Re:Reminded me of this: by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

      Except that they're not trying random things. Search is directed by neural network.

    4. Re:Reminded me of this: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except that they're not trying random things. Search is directed by neural network.

      Exactly like alchemy, or cargo cult. Try and error, faith, and absolutely no science.

    5. Re:Reminded me of this: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trial, failure, success. That is exactly what science is.

    6. Re:Reminded me of this: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except that they're not trying random things. Search is directed by neural network.

      Which is more or less the same thing when the people who build and train neural network seldom know what it's actually keying off until they find out how badly it does with corner cases and that it's measuring the wrong thing.

      It's a magic black box, what it's really doing is a complete mystery.

  10. Itâ(TM)s not the first by unknown_user_name · · Score: 2

    They are basically taking the same spot that TA Edison used so successfully The same idea was also used by the University of Manchester with automated lab assistants dubbed Adam and Eve https://www.chemistryworld.com...

  11. AI winter please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    After the AI update, google results went from being usable, to total unbelievable dogshit over night.
    Unfortunately the user base seemed to go from tech savvy, to brain dead NPCs also over night, so nobody noticed.

    Now I'm stuck here surrounded by shit robots. The NPCs won't believe that neural networks are still stupid toys like 20 years ago.
    They don't understand how the media works, the hype cycle, only believe literally what they're told.

    1. Re: AI winter please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dogshit over night after activation of âoeAIâ hear hear. My last wonderfull experience was trying to find some properties regarding apples - you know the fruit. Because my apple was harder than a stone, and was trying to figure out how come.

      You have guested it - I was only able to find how to buy iPhones/iPadâ(TM)s and iPhones and iPhones. And buy buy buy. And how to do a hard reset, etc,etc. but learning something about nature and human life is so 1900â(TM)s

      I started when I was little with using the internet for actual information and that gave me the possibility to learn alot. Have home schooled myself for alot of things.

      But nowadays I cannot imagine being born in the current time and you try to search for knowledge you will only find commercials, commercials and AI who know better than you what you need. You are searching for knowledge but what you really need is advertisement right.

      It takes time to get used to it, but im revering back to meta search engines like duckduckgo and qwant.

      And I started to get inner cirlcle people to stop using Google services. Which will cost me alot of time and effort. But itâ(TM)s time we start to boycot things like google AND the people using it. And put the energy in it to help the people arround us to migrate.

      I tried to get my people of Whatsapp - a fools mission. For the rest, if you need my IT support, I will not give it if you are still using Chrome as you main browser en Google as you main search engine. My reaponse will be why donâ(TM)t you ask your God Google to help you.

      Brave browser , duckduckGo and Qwant, is step 1.

      Itâ(TM)s time people - this is a calm to action :P

  12. Re: I thought computer operated systems like this. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Corporate money will "fix" that "issue" and they will own results of automated processes.

  13. We use algorithms to control robots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Big news everyone!!! Millenial bro just invented the next big thing (because we're AWESOME)

    seriously, how could any generation before us live without the internet and instagram? Are they dumb or what?

  14. AI IS THE NEW GOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Liberals scoff at religion, and instead choose to worship Science and her chosen messengers known as Scientist. Now that we have artiricial intelligence doing science we can worship AI. Just as nonscientist must defer all thinking to to scientist. Now scientist can defer to artificial intelligence.

    All must bow down to the alogorithm. Human agency will be eliminated in the brave

  15. Brute force inventing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Creativity is over rated

  16. No insight possible by Sqreater · · Score: 1

    Filters "useless" compounds. Um, ok. But what if the startling breakthrough takes place in one of those assumed useless compounds? No insight possible. No flash of brilliance. No serendipity. No human advantage possible. Remember junk DNA? It was until it wasn't.

    --
    E Proelio Veritas.
    1. Re: No insight possible by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      It still is.

    2. Re: No insight possible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The ENCODE project says you're ignorant.

    3. Re: No insight possible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Naw, according to your own article they said:

      "People always knew there was more there than protein-coding genes. It was always clear that there was regulation."

      So it seems that they're saying that you're ignorant.

  17. Re: I thought computer operated systems like this. by c6gunner · · Score: 1

    Feel free to start your own robot lab and give away the results for free.

  18. Dream up? by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

    Robots don't dream -- there are no brainwaves. Either it is trying materials at random or enumerating the permutations.

    Who the fuck writes this garbage?

    // Get next material to try
    function DreamUp()
    {
            return Math.floor(Math.random() * NUM_MATERIALS);
    }

    1. Re:Dream up? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Pretty much this. Its basically taking the place of undergraduates. Go and mix this and that together and see what happens. The upside of having a robot do it is that you don't have that pesky problem of undergrads poisoning themselves when they mix the wrong chemicals together.

    2. Re:Dream up? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      xkcd says your function is too complex.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    3. Re:Dream up? by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      Haha, yeah I was debating whether to include that PS4 satire or not.

  19. BeauHD... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do you misuse phrases ("dream up") on purpose or do you really, really believe that humans dreaming up a system to streamline a research process actually means the new system then becomes conscious?

    Note: My usage is correct, so my money's on you're doing it purposefully.

  20. What will the grad students do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Won't somebody think of the poor grad students?!

  21. We've seen how this turns out by BlackOverflow · · Score: 1

    The company believes it may find new compounds that could, among other things, "absorb pollution" (murder humans), "combat drug-resistant fungal infections" (murder humans), and "serve as more efficient optoelectronic components" (murder humans).

  22. Mugshots by philmarcracken · · Score: 1

    I applaud whoever took the founders mugshots, makes them all look like they themselves were forced to give this machine a body and just say they did it intentionally.