Researchers at Aberystwyth University in Wales say they have created the first machine that can independently hypothesize, test, and recognize new scientific discoveries.
ADAM, the “scientist,” looks more like a cluttered laboratory than a cyborg – it doesn’t have any shoulders to support a lab coat. But the prototype pairs precise robotic hardware with high-powered artificial intelligence.
To test their design, Prof. Ross King and his team asked ADAM to research the genome of baker’s yeast. They taught the machine biology and let it plan its own experiments. Without further human intervention, ADAM cracked a simple but undiscovered aspect of enzymes in the yeast. Mr. King’s team later backed up the finding with independent research.
“Ultimately, we hope to have teams of human and robot scientists working together in laboratories,” King says in the announcement. “Because biological organisms are so complex, it is important that the details of biological experiments are recorded in great detail. This is difficult and irksome for human scientists, but easy for robot scientists.”
Lessons learned from ADAM will go into developing its improved sibling, EVE. King hopes this next generation of robot scientist will help create new medicines.
CAMBRIDGE, England, April 3 (UPI) -- A robot scientist acting without human help has made its first real, albeit modest, discoveries, say researchers at the University of Cambridge.
Named Adam, the robot is the creation of researchers at Cambridge and the United Kingdom's Aberystwyth University, New Scientist reported Friday.
Without human assistance, Adam formulated and tested 20 hypotheses about gene coding for 13 enzymes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, also known as brewer's yeast, said Ross King, a biologist at Aberystwyth who leads the project.
"It's certainly a contribution to knowledge. It would be publishable," King said, noting Adam has enough equipment to fill a small lab, including four computers that act as a brain and robotic arms, cameras, liquid handlers and incubators.
Adam, and a robot-in-the-making called Eve, will help free human scientists from routine and time-consuming scientific chores and some day may even be capable of ground-breaking independent research, King said.
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!"
Thomas Parke D’Invilliers
This is interesting, and certainly useful.
[tangent]
I am ashamed to admit that the first thing I thought of when I read this was watching Astro boy on TV; yes, i was too old to be watching this even at the time it was aired, but anyway... The series was based around the theme of AI, and a scientist who aimed to build stronger and stronger robots, built a robot capable of building other robots, and the robot he built soon outstripped the human's ability to construct robots. So yep, the series had an artficially intelligent being creating other artficially intelligent beings.
Still, I suspect it is a long time before robots start independently designing other robots in the manner described above.
[/tangent]
Is Eve going to designed to do anything that Adam can't do, or are the two robots going to be identical?
Random radio ___________This spiral
Static on tv ____________Has worn a groove so deep
Losing count of _________Can’t climb out
All the days and weeks ___Pathetic, painful need
It marks an advance in computer science in that it gives us a new application for computer technology. This discovery simply verifies that the scientists who built it programmed it correctly, but the result is a new tool in the inventory. The equiptment avalible to us also provides the parameters within which we can do research.
Yes, this computer gives us no additional measuring facilities, but it changes the manner in which research is done through providing greater efficiency, therefore increasing the rate at which new information can be harness, and possibly reshaping the methods employed within the field.
Random radio ___________This spiral
Static on tv ____________Has worn a groove so deep
Losing count of _________Can’t climb out
All the days and weeks ___Pathetic, painful need
It marks an advance in computer science in that it gives us a new application for computer technology. This discovery simply verifies that the scientists who built it programmed it correctly, but the result is a new tool in the inventory. The equiptment avalible to us also provides the parameters within which we can do research.
Yes, this computer gives us no additional measuring facilities, but it changes the manner in which research is done through providing greater efficiency, therefore increasing the rate at which new information can be harness, and possibly reshaping the methods employed within the field.
That's all very pretty language but scientifically it represents nothing new whatsoever.
That's incredible. An amazing feat of human engineering, as well as potentially very useful.
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell. I know, right now you can't tell. But stay a while and maybe then you'll see A different side of me Unwell - Matchbox 20
"Why inflict pain on oneself, when so many others are ready to save us the trouble?"
George Pacaud (1879 - 1937)
