E Coda

We've briefly reviewed two very different visions of how Big Data and advanced AI may affect science. In one vision, dominated by the Big Data Mindset, the oceans of data completely overwhelm our mental capabilities and we give up entirely on “theory” and, in fact, on any attempt to understand nature.

In the other vision, translation of abstract scientific, philosophical, and lin­guistic concepts into computer language becomes ever more sophisticated. The Robot Scientist, Adam, can already perform reasonably complex experiments requiring the manipulation of coordinated suites of laboratory equipment. He can design and execute complicated series of experiments and communicate his results intelligibly to human scientists. While his capabilities are somewhat constrained in the sense that he cannot generate truly original ideas and needs to have a full database of information at his disposal, he is not limited to using the data in previously predetermined ways. Although the scope of Adam's capabil­ities is presently limited to experiments on yeast, these are early days and we can expect that Adam's siblings or clones will extend their reach into other branches of science in the future.