Comment by parineum

11 hours ago

The bottleneck in biology isn't thinking, it's experimenting. AI could potentially operate a lab but the test process is a lot more expensive than math is.

Are there efforts into building "autonomous laboratories"? Not sure if the idea is practical but it seems like a direction things might go in, where you give an advanced model, or a swarm with a leader, free reign to run experiments day and night.

  • Anthropic are building out their own bio lab where I believe they will have techs do Claude‘s bidding. I really don’t know how to feel about that.

  • I'm sure someone is working on it. My point though is that the experimentation has a lot more logistics than checking your work with math.

    You've got to procure, use and dispose of a ton of equipment. And it all costs a good amount of money.