Researchers are building AI-powered robot labs. What does this mean for science?

Thanks to new technologies like artificial intelligence, scientists are increasingly freed from the constraints of the laboratory. It raises questions about how much humans should outsource to robots. SCOTT DETROW, HOST: Researchers may be able to start running experiments without ever setting foot in a lab. New technology, including artificial intelligence, is increasingly allowing them to delegate all kinds of tasks, from repetitive lab work to designing experience. NPR's Katia Riddle visits one company in Boston that is building something called an autonomous lab. KATIA RIDDLE, BYLINE: The origin story for this company called Ginkgo Bioworks begins with several graduate students from MIT. It was nearly two decades ago they united around a shared idea. JASON KELLY: We wanted to make biology easier to engineer, right? We believe that programming cells would ultimately be more important than programming computers. RIDDLE: Jason Kelly was one of those students. Now he's one of the company founders. Things like gene editing or testing new molecules typically take many hours of painstaking labor in the laboratory. These scientists wanted to replace the humans doing these tasks with robots. Not everyone believed this idea would work. KELLY: We were, you know, living on ramen, buying equipment on eBay, and we could not raise venture capital. RIDDLE: Then came the AI boom. …