Artificial Intelligence in Chemistry – Tajinder Singh

Artificial intelligence is a field of science concerned with building computers and machines that can reason, learn, and act in such a way that would normally require human intelligence or that involves data whose scale exceeds what humans can analyze. AI, based largely on machine-learning algorithms that can mine huge data sets for patterns and correlations, seem best regarded as an assistant to, rather than a replacement for, the human researcher. It can do an awful lot, especially when coupled to robotic systems: not just analyse data but plan and execute experiments, make iterative improvements and even formulate and test specific hypotheses. Little of this is yet routine in the laboratory, but it is becoming ever more so. In some ways, chemistry is ripe for AI colonisation.