(ORNL: Oak Ridge, TN) -- A workshop led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory sketched a road map toward a longtime goal: developing autonomous, or self-driving, next-generation research laboratories.

Scientists have dreamed for generations of high-tech laboratories operated via robotics at the push of a button.  Recent advancements in artificial intelligence bring those dreams closer to reality, says Rafael Ferreira da Silva, an ORNL senior research scientist and lead author of the workshop’s report.

“These facilities will be the labs of the future,” Ferreira da Silva says. “Everyone in the world right now is talking about AI. Our idea was to look ahead and think about what these AI-based labs of the future should look like, what obstacles we’re likely to have to overcome to get there, and how to keep humans in the loop to ensure we follow sound scientific and ethical principles.”

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