Robot scientist makes gene discovery

Adam then devised experiments to test its prediction, ran the experiments using laboratory robotics, interpreted the results, and used those findings to revise its original hypothesis and test it out further. The researchers used their own separate experiments to confirm that Adam's hypotheses were both novel and correct.

"This is one of the first systems to get [artificial intelligence] to try and control laboratory automation," King told Live Science. Current robots, he noted, "tend to do one thing or a sequence of things. The complexity of Adam is that it has cycles."