The Art of Organic Synthesis in the Age of Automation

Recent progress in the automation of chemical synthesis is part of a broad ongoing trend that is based on incorporating machine learning algorithms to improve automated performance in different tasks. However, what are the implications on the art of organic synthesis? Will robotic chemists replace us in the next 50-100years? Will they be able to outperform a master organic chemist in the study of mechanisms, the development of new reactions, the optimization of reaction conditions, catalysts, or synthetic routes? What would be our role as human chemists in this automation revolution? In this essay, these questions will be reflected upon through the progress in the synthesis of strychnine since 1954.