“Automating Ourselves Out of Our Jobs?”: The Automation of Science in a Science Automation Lab

• In Event: Academic Automation: Machine (un)learning /Artificial (non)intelligence - I

Abstract

This paper draws from my ethnographic engagement within a “science automation lab”, in which scientists developed AI and robotics solutions to automate microbiological experiments.
Here I discuss the effects these scientists considered their research might have in the practice of science itself, particularly when faced with the question of whether they were building systems which would, possibly, replace their labour and put themselves out of employment.
Drawing from their statements and from critical university studies, I show how they consider these concerns to be unfounded and misleading: rather than worry about robots replacing scientists in the future, they worry about not getting stable employment in the current academic system.

Author

• Vlad Schüler-Costa, University of Manchester