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ADAM will show just what a Robot Scientist can do

Children will be given the chance to meet the original Robot Scientist in a series of demonstrations at London’s Science Museum next week.

Dr Larisa Soldatova, from Brunel University London’s computer science department, will join academic colleagues to demonstrate just what ADAM, a machine who thinks and does experiments like a human scientist, is capable of.

The event is part of the ‘Antenna Live’ series, giving young people the opportunity to meet scientists and learn more about automated systems.

ADAM, the centrepiece of the event, will be used to explain how a machine can originate hypotheses to explain observations; devise experiments to test the hypotheses; run the experiments using laboratory robotics; interpret the results; and then repeat the cycle.

The Robot Scientist project aims to develop a framework for knowledge discovery by teams of human and robot scientists. The framework will integrate and advance a number of computer methodologies including artificial intelligence, knowledge representation, machine learning, bioinformatics and automated experimentation.

Dr Soldatova said: “In the coming decades scientific discoveries will be made by teams of human and robot scientists working together, and these collaborations will generate scientific knowledge more efficiently than either could alone. It is an exciting time for science and it’s great to be able to share this developing way of working with children who could be the scientists of the future.”

The free demonstrations will take place at the Science Museum on 25-27 August. For more information about the Robot Scientist, visit here.