> They can put it onto robots / automatic labs, so this step is easily solvable. Humans in a modern lab are largely unnecessary. Just look at China.

You can automate the setup and mechanical process. You could increase the physical capacity for parallel tests. You could increase the rate of acquiring raw materials.

But how much you cut down the time depends on how much of the trial-and-error feedback loop depends on feedback and iteration vs cast a wider initial net.

(One of the interesting things to me about the dominant software development agent pattern across all of Claude, Codex, and Cursor is that the approach is still extremely local and iterative, human-mimicking, rather than big-brain-one-shotting a novel or perfectly-fit-for-purpose software design. The performance of the agents on the initial "jump to conclusions" step does not appear superhuman in the same way that the speed-of-iteration is clearly superhuman.)