Robotic Scientists

University of Liverpool's robotic scientist could make scientific discovery "a thousand times faster", scientists claim.

10:18 14 July 2020

A robotic scientist has been recently unveiled by scientists at the University of Liverpool. The £100,000 programmable researcher has been designed to learn from its results to refine its experiments allowing it to make scientific discovery "a thousand times faster" because it "does not get bored, does not get tired and works around the clock". It is also less prone to common human errors and could be used on riskier experiments, harsher laboratory environments or when using more toxic substances. 

 

The announcement follows a report released by the Royal Society of Chemistry that lays out a "post-Covid national research strategy" using advanced computing, robotics and artificial intelligence as part of a suite of technologies that scientists must embrace as they continue to discover solutions to global challenges.

 

The robotic scientists have been described in the journal Nature as an advanced technology currently "embarking on a series of tests to find a catalyst that could speed up the reaction that takes place inside solar cells." 

 

Prof Andy Cooper said that the robot scientist could also be used in the fight against Covid-19. He said: "We've had a lot of interest [in the robot] from labs that are doing Covid research. Covid, climate change - there are a lot of problems that really need intentional co-operation. So our vision is we might have robots like this all across the world connected by a centralised brain which can be anywhere. We haven't done that yet - this is the first example - but that's absolutely what we'd like to do."