MIT's Wenhao Gao: perception, not actuation, is the bottleneck for AI chemistry
AnneliesGamble · x · 2026-10-01
Wenhao Gao (MIT) argues the field misunderstands AI in chemistry: too many people over-focus on the actuation problem. The real gap is perception — after a reaction runs you get a mixture with no direct knowledge of its contents; LC-MS and NMR give only indirect signals requiring structural inference.
His analogy: 'The computer vision problem in an autonomous car is the perception problem in an autonomous lab.' Perception and decision-making on top of it gate everything downstream.
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