alt Hacker News> You can't really optimize the trial and error feedback loop time.
Isn't this exactly what startups in this area are doing - automated experiments connected to AI. Of course at some stage things will "graduate" to human review but it still seems to have a lot of potential.
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_heimdall • today at 3:13 AM
Have they produced statistically significant outcomes yet?
Genuine question because I don't know the answer, I've just anecdotally heard all about the promise and nothing about real world results.
Even with automated experiments, the wet chemistry is slow. The kind of answer you might calculate in a second for a math problem could take many hours for the chemical reaction to occur.
Biology grad students can spend 40+ hours per week in the lab, on top of all their course work. It's not so bad though, since there's plenty of time to grade papers or work on your thesis while waiting for reactions to occur.