The chemist’s gambit

Elegant retrosynthesis is an artform, it is strategic: you need to plan ahead, but also be able to adapt, if reactions do not work out. When the lockdown in 2020 started, I came upon those very same patterns in completely different field – chess. With everyone stuck at home, online chess suddenly became highly popular, especially after the release of the series The Queen’s Gambit. My friends and I were among those who gave it a shot. Out of curiosity, I also read a bit into the history of the game: interesting anecdotes, big names like Paul Morphy or Bobby Fischer and – around 25 years ago – the rise of the machine, as Deep Blue became the first computer to beat a reigning world champion, Garry Kasparov.

As I went deeper down the rabbit hole of chess, I talked with a colleague about the use of machine learning in chemistry. With Deep Blue on my mind, I was a bit worried: Will all my years of study be useless if artificial intelligence (AI) takes over research as soon as I finish my degree?

I think this fear of the ‘rise of the machines’ lies in many people. Hollywood has added more than its fair share to that with villains like Skynet in The Terminator. Frankly, with only malevolent examples like that and my future job at risk, I was also infected by that fear. Therefore, to follow The Art of War, I decided to get to know my rival better and read into the topic.