Human-computer collaboration in science

from the but-who-gets-first-authorship? dept.
Waldemar Perez noted a New Scientistarticle on silicon scientists. "This fits perfectly with Drexler's automated engineering mentioned in Engines of Creation. This article talks about Inductive Logic Programming. I'm really impressed with the progress of robotics in the last couple of years.
Read More for an initial quote from the article. "You program a computer, teach it everything you know about drug design, and then it beats you to the Nobel Prize. Srinivasan's machine at Oxford University is just one example of a silent revolution that is taking place in labs across the world. Computers, commonly perceived as little more than ultra-fast calculators, are suggesting new ideas in medicine and chemistry, determining the roles of genes and proposing and testing new mathematical theorems. They are even helping with the choice of embryos for IVF implantation. Computers have been promoted from dumb tools to full research partners, and people working without digital colleagues may soon begin to fall behind. "The future lies in human-computer collaboration," Srinivasan says. From Machine Head