The US National Academies has just released an important report on the implications and promises of automated research workflows on scientific discovery. These workflows combine computation, lab automation, and machine learning/AI in various ways that are having transformational impact on research in various disciplines. The committee that authored the report was chaired by University of Michigan Professor Emeritus Dan Atkins, who is well known to the CNI community for the "Atkins report" on Cyberinfrastructure, his work as the first director of the NSF Office of Cyberinfrastructure, and as a recipient of the Paul Evan Peters award in 2008. For the report, see

https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/26532/automated-research-workflows-for-accelerated-discovery-closing-the-knowledge-discovery

for a summary press release, see

https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2022/05/automated-research-workflows-are-speeding-pace-of-scientific-discovery-new-report-offers-recommendations-to-advance-their-development

CNI continues to track developments in this area closely; I invite you to to consider this report in context of the Carnegie Mellon Cloud Lab work that we highlighted in our December 2021 Member meeting (video is available via the CNI web site) for example. Often, the National Academies does a webinar in conjunction with the release of a report like this, but thus far, I am not aware of one having been scheduled; if I get information on such a presentation, I'll post it here.

Clifford Lynch
Director, CNI