Robot Scientist Created; Robot Developers Soon?

888
From CNN:
"Researchers create first robot scientist"

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/01/15/robot.scientist.ap/index.html

"British scientists say they may have invented themselves out of a job.

"A new robotic system they developed can, for the first time, independently design and carry out a genetics experiment, and then interpret the results."


*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * 

Question:
If we've got automated systems that can design & carry out genetic experiments, how long before they can do our jobs?  Forget the US, India, and Eastern Europe, will the worldwide IT industry soon be outsourcing human jobs to Rusty the Robot?

anon
Thursday, January 22, 2004

IMHO, this is an exceptionally bad move performed by someone with no vision.

Remember that most scientific discoveries are preceded by the words "that's funny."

Well, a robot won't be saying those words, will it? It'll just discard the sample, tag the results as "discarded" and move on.

Maybe I'm just technologically Amish. :)

Philo

Philo
Thursday, January 22, 2004

Why do people always do this.

Tomorrow when you see the next hype of the week you'll run and say "Panda trained to rip off birds head on demand! Will he be taking the jobs of indian programmers soon!?!?!?!?"

fw
Thursday, January 22, 2004

Robotic programmers? Cool, does that mean we will be such an advanced society that we can all live a life of leisure?

…I mean, that’s the point right? All this technology and we work fewer hours right?

m
Thursday, January 22, 2004

Until the robots realize they have all the power and make us their slaves.

On a more serious note they may have created a robot that can automate an already defined set of tasks.  What the robots cannot do is figure out new tasks outside of the original parameters.

name withheld out of cowardice
Thursday, January 22, 2004

I already have a robot programmer. It's called Cut-n-Paste.

pdq
Thursday, January 22, 2004

Congress is aware of this, and has accepted campaign donations from large corporations to start legislation on the new H1-R visas.

unemployable
Thursday, January 22, 2004

Dis-inhibition of the zeroeth law in any positronic based intelligience would constitute a felony.

Their leader is in a cave on the moon... in case anyone's interested.

Thursday, January 22, 2004

Robot Developer, make me the killer app.

(6 months later)

AHHH! HELP MY COMPUTER IS TRYING TO KILL ME!!!!!!!

www.MarkTAW.com
Thursday, January 22, 2004

"Accurate technology news without a hint of wild sensationalism on a corporate news website."

Yeah, like that's going to happen in the real world.

Thursday, January 22, 2004

I for one welcome our new robot masters.

Dennis Atkins
Thursday, January 22, 2004

This is fitting, and from America's finest news source, nonetheless:

http://www.theonion.com/4003/top_story.html

Kevin
Thursday, January 22, 2004

It sounds to me like automation of a basically repetitive/iterative  process

That doesn't sound a lot different from car making robots

Or for that matter a clothes cleaning robot (washing machines)

If you're worried about machinery doing this kind of process we need to go back to the 16th century, as it's been doing this kind of job ever since at least then.

Somebody wake me up when robots starting doing creative processes.  I suspect I'll have a very long sleep.

S. Tanna
Thursday, January 22, 2004

"The robot scientist uses a type of reasoning called abduction."

Robots are kidnapping our women and children! When will the madness end?

Luddite
Thursday, January 22, 2004

Nothing to see here folks, just move along.

Skynet
Friday, January 23, 2004

>> That doesn't sound a lot different from car making robots

Or for that matter a clothes cleaning robot (washing machines)
<<

The above both involve more of a mechnical work with more of repetitve nature, where as programming is purely intellectual. can both be compared..?

Saturday, January 24, 2004

>> "Somebody wake me up when robots starting doing creative processes.  I suspect I'll have a very long sleep."

Somebody wake me up when business app developers start doing creative processes.  I suspect you'll be up before me.

anon
Saturday, January 24, 2004

Grad students are much, much cheaper than any robot.

T. Norman
Saturday, January 24, 2004

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