DailyDirt: Robot Scientists
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
People are usually pretty quick to admit that artificial intelligence programs are better than most humans at solving a lot of math problems. Human scientists have generally been needed to interpret data and make conclusions, but AI software could be catching up with scientists by coming up with their own hypotheses and conclusions. Here are just a few examples of programs that might be writing up their own PhD dissertations someday.- Robot mathematicians like Graffiti have been around for a very long time, generating far more interesting conjectures than any human could. Interesting mathematical conjectures should be surprising, not too closely related to an existing conjecture, and not too specific. [url]
- Software dubbed Eureqa is analyzing (without help from humans) experimental data from biological systems to derive mathematical models for processes like glycolysis -- and could potentially find new biological discoveries. And I'm sure we'll see stories of robots found cheating by plagiarizing from Wikipedia soon. [url]
- Adam is the first automated scientist -- successfully developing a hypothesis, performing experiments, refining its hypothesis into a novel discovery. Adam found three yeast genes that coded for an orphan enzyme. [url]
- A newer version of Adam, called Eve, is sifting through some of Adam's data and looking to find her own discoveries about yeast genetics. Unfortunately, some intellectual property issues are delaying some of Adam and Eve's latest publications. [url]
- To discover more interesting robot-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: adam, ai, biology, conjectures, eureqa, eve, graffiti, math, orphan enzyme, robots, scientists, software, yeast genetics
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Carry on ;)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/robot_invasion/2011/09/robot_invasion_can_computer s_replace_scientists_.single.html
It's part of a series on humans being replaced by computers, so it focuses more on the part where Eureqa solved a problem and nobody could figure out how the solution worked.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
A newer version of Adam, called Eve, is sifting through some of Adam's data and looking to find her own discoveries about yeast genetics.
Jeez, even in the computer world, women have to have the last word! ;)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Quote:
Genetic programming is cool.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Thanks for reading! Hopefully you're not the only one who likes these tidbits of random info... :P
mikeho
[ link to this | view in thread ]