The Robot Experimentalist

人们通常认为有两种类型的科学家：理论科学家和实验科学家。理论科学家发明[发现]解释自然界的新理论。实验科学家发明实验来验证这些理论。例如，理论物理学家阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦发明了广义相对论，天文学家通过发明在日食期间观察恒星在太阳附近的位置的想法来测试广义相对论。人工智能(AI)正越来越多地被用于科学研究。几乎所有这些努力都是为了形成新的假设来解释数据。这与理论科学家所做的是一致的。在实验科学家所做工作的自动化方面投入的努力要少得多。这就是我们提出的研究重点。我们建议培养一名机器人实验者。这将是一个人工智能系统，当给定一个要测试的假设和一组实验室设备的描述时，它将能够计划一个实验来验证假设。为了使问题易于处理，我们将专注于使用酵母S。这是用来制造面包、啤酒和葡萄酒的有机体；但它在生物学中的主要作用是作为人类细胞的模型。令人惊讶的是，大多数适用于酿酒酵母的情况也适用于智人。我们将使用英国和日本的实验室机器人对机器人实验者进行测试。

It is often considered that there are two types of scientist: theoretical and experimental. Theoretical scientists invent/discover new theories to explain the natural world. Experimental scientists invent experiments to test these theories. For example, the theoretical physicist Albert Einstein invented the theory of General Relativity, and astronomers tested General Relativity by inventing the idea of observing the position of stars near the Sun during a solar eclipse. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly being used in scientific research. Almost all of this effort is in the formation of new hypotheses to explain data. This corresponds to what theoretical scientists do. Far less effort has been put into automating what experimental scientists do. This is what the proposed research focus on.We propose to develop a 'Robot Experimentalist'. This will be an AI system that when given a hypothesis to be tested, and a description of a set of laboratory equipment, will be able to plan an experiment to test the hypothesis.To make the problem tractable we will focus on experiments using the yeast S. cerevisiae. This is the organism used to make bread, beer, and wine; but its main role in biology is as a model for human cells. Surprisingly, most of what is true for S. cerevisiae is also true for H. sapiens. We will test the Robot Experimentalist using laboratory robots in the UK and Japan.