2 ms·

So we should have just thrown away the first computers because inputting problems into them wasn't that much faster than doing it by hand?

• mattkrause 7y ago
  Nobody's seriously suggesting that. That said, I do worry about all the hype and overpromising and whether that's eventually going to come back to haunt the entire field, like the (1st) AI Winter.
• entee 7y ago
  Robots are absolutely useful, and major companies are building out massive robotics facilities to accelerate drug development. The point is that it's not a magic solution. It still takes a bunch of staff to run, and (much less appreciated) it takes a different mindset to be maximally useful. For example, maybe instead of doing a dozen informative but slightly complex assays, you do 1000 less useful but less complex assays. The end result might be just as useful if not more, but you have to structure your experiment differently. It's unlikely that technology will play out the same way in biotech as it has in pure tech. I'm heavily invested in the idea that it will be immensely useful, but given the different constraints and problem space I think the trajectory will be different.