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Editorial
Nature 427, 181 (15 January 2004) | doi:10.1038/427181b
Don't fear the Robot Scientist
Abstract
Contrary to first impressions, an automated system that designs its own experiments will benefit young molecular geneticists.
At first glance, it seems to render obsolete the armies of postgrads and postdocs employed in the world's molecular-genetics laboratories. In this week's issue (see page 247), a British team unveils an automated system that "originates hypotheses to explain observations, devises experiments to test these hypotheses, physically runs the experiments using a laboratory robot, interprets the results to falsify hypotheses inconsistent with the data, and then repeats the cycle".
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